ABSTRACT
Background and Aim: The growing evidence of neurodevelopmental basis to schizophrenia has focused attention on the prenatal development of individuals who later develop the illness. Some previous studies carried out about cephalometry of schizophrenic adult patients showed different findings. This study aimed to compare cephalometric indices of schizophrenic patients with normal population
Method and Materials: In the current case-control study, we compared cephalometric indices of 195 schizophrenic patients with those of 198 normal comparison people who were matched for age, sex, height, weight and social status
Findings: The results demonstrated a significant difference between the two groups. The frequency of hyperbrachycephaly in schizophrenic group was significantly higher than in the control group [P < 0.05, X2 = 17.65], but this difference existed only between schizophrenic males and control males[P < 0.05, X2 = 14.42]
Conclusion: Hyperbrachycephaly typically results from early closure of coronal suture. In general, the findings attract the attention toward the role of biologic and genetic factors in etiology of schizophrenia