[Capgras syndrome in adolescence: a review apropos of one case]

The author report a case of Capgras' syndrome in a 12-years-old girl, who had been hospitalized for attacks of abdominal pain. These symptoms had gone on for two years and led twice to surgical interventions which did not find any organic etiology. Interviews with the girl showed that the abdominal pains were related to symptoms of typical panic attacks which lasted about 20 minutes. In some on them, she experienced multiple autoscopy and the "illusion des sosies", described by Capgras. Long-term evolution showed that Capgras' syndrome disappeared with improvement of the panic attacks, but ten years later the patient is still suffering from generalized anxiety. To our knowledge, no case, even in adult patients, was previously described in the context of panic attacks. Furthermore, Capgras' syndrome is particularly rare at adolescence. Our review of literature exhibits only 19 cases under 18. Diagnosis was available in 16 cases, and consisted of schizophrenia or schizophreniform psychosis in 62.5% of the cases. The others involved acute psychosis (2 cases), post-partum psychosis (1 case), drug-induced-psychosis (1 case), psychotic major depression (1 case), and post-varicella encephalitis (1 case). The doubles (out of the 15 cases where relevant detail is available) included at least a parent in 92.9% of patients, a brother or sister in 35.7%, a member of the medical team in 21.4% and a grand-parent in 14.3%.