A comparison of CT findings in acute and chronic ward schizophrenics.

Two groups of chronic schizophrenics, one from a short-stay hospital and the other from a chronic hospital setting, were matched on age and length of illness. Their CT (computed tomography) scans, obtained on the same equipment, were then compared with headache control subjects of similar age. Lateral ventricular size was significantly greater in the chronic ward schizophrenics than in either the acute ward patients or the controls. Over one-half the chronic ward samples had ventricles which exceeded the mean plus two standard deviations of the control group. There was also evidence of an increased frequency of reversed occipital asymmetry in the chronic ward schizophrenics. These findings suggest that previous discrepancies reported in the literature for CT studies of schizophrenics might be related to differences in the patient populations studied.