Evaluation of skull cortical thickness changes in healthy persons and schizophrenia patients in terms of age and gender using computed tomography

This study aimed to determine skull cortical thickness changes in schizophrenia patients, compare them with the control group, and evaluate them in terms of age and gender. For this aim, who applied to Kozan State Hospital Radiology Department for various reasons between 2018-2022 axial Computed Tomography (CT) images of the brain regions of 30 individuals,12 female and 18 male aged 18-69 years, who diagnosed with schizophrenia and xial CT images of the brain region of 132 healthy individuals, 69 male and 63 female aged 18-75 years, were retrospectively examined. Age, gender, skull length, skull width, anterior thickness, right anterior cortical thickness, left anterior cortical thickness, right lateral cortical thickness, left lateral cortical thickness, right posterior lateral thickness, left posterior lateral thickness and posterior cortical thickness of the individuals participating in the study were measured by electronic caliper on axial CT. Mean ±standard deviation, maximum (max.) and minimum (min.) values were obtained by using the IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 program for the measurement results of the participants included in the study. Significance level was accepted as p<0.05. Measurements were also evaluated according to gender. In our study, while there was no statistically significant difference between the patient group and the control group in skull width, skull length, anterior cortical thickness, right anterior cortical thickness, left anterior cortical thickness, right lateral cortical thickness and left lateral cortical thickness measurements (p>0.05), there was a statistically significant difference was observed between the two groups in the measurements of right posterior lateral thickness, left posterior lateral thickness and posterior cortical thickness (p<0.05). In our study, genders were compared, and skull width, anterior thickness, left anterior thickness, right posterior thickness and left posterior thickness measurements in the patient group showed a statistically significant difference from the control group (p<0.05). We think that this study will make a significant contribution to the literature as it is the first study to measure the cortical bone thickness of schizophrenia patients. We also think that our study will be an important resource in establishing reference values for our population.