Schizophernia and empty sella – casual or correlated?

A male patient, 44 years old, with schizophrenia which started at the age of 18. At his last follow-up visit, laboratory tests and brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were performed, revealing the presence of a sellar arachnoidocele. To our knowledge, there is only one similar case report of a set of male monozygotic triplets with schizophrenia and empty sella syndrome. High-resolution chromosome analysis found an extra band at chromosome 15p in all the triplets and their father. We performed a similar evaluation in our patient and his family to compare the results and identify new information on neuroanatomical abnormalities, hormonal alterations or genetic origins of schizophrenia.