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 followup 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 mono zygotic 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 neuro anatomical abnormalities, hormonal alterations or genetic origins of schizophrenia. (authors)