Cerebral Ventricular Enlargement in Chronic Schizophrenia: An Association with Poor Response to Treatment

Response to neuroleptic drug treatment in ten chronic schizophrenic patients with enlarged cerebral ventricles was compared with ten similar patients with normal ventricles. The groups were closely matched for age, age at onset of illness, years of illness and hospitalization, drug dosage, and plasma neuroleptic concentration as measured by radioreceptor assay. Response was significantly worse in the patients with enlarged ventricles. This finding supports the notion that ventricular enlargement is clinically relevant in patients with chronic schizophrenia and that patients with this abnormality may have a biologically different illness than similar patients without it.