[Characteristics of the course of recurrent-progressive schizophrenia with the dysmorphomania syndrome].

As many as 60 patients suffering from dysmorphomania were examined. The patients' age ranged from 17 to 61 years at the moment of examination. Analysis of the disease course has demonstrated that all the patients suffered from attack-like progredient schizophrenia. Depending on the structure of the attacks and dynamics of dysmorphomania two clinical groups were distinguished. In group I, the disease picture was specified by mainly affective attacks; dysmorphomania occurred at the adolescent (more rarely at the juvenile) age. It was characterized by a tendency towards complication, with a progressive deactualization in repeated attacks of the disease. In group II, the disease manifested itself by complication of the attacks which progressed from affective ones to the states of depression with interpretive paranoid or (and) affective-paranoid attacks. The syndrome of dysmorphomania occurred at varying age and was marked by diversity of manifestations, complication in the attacks that followed (fabula expansion, formation of hypochondriac delirium coinciding with dysmorphomania in the subject matter). The given group was characterized by progredient course of schizophrenia.