Minor Physical Anomalies in Japanese Patients With Schizophrenia

We assessed the prevalence of minor physical anomalies (MPAs) in Japanese patients with schizophrenia (n=313) and normal controls (n=128) using the Waldrop scale. There was a significant difference in the scale scores between the patients with schizophrenia and control subjects (U=17274.5, p=0.02). Patients had significantly more MPAs than controls on the individual scale items of malformed ears (p=0.039), furrowed tongue (p=0.006), high steepled palate (p=0.041) and head circumference which was 1.5 SDs below the average of normal controls (p=0.015). When we defined subjects at or above the median MPA score to be in the high anomaly group, significantly more patients than normal controls were represented in this group (p=0.033). Waldrop scores were not found to be related to age at onset of schizophrenia