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A Case of Persistent Psychotic Disorder with the Previous History of Inhalant Abuse

A 18 year-old male patient visited hospital due to psychotic symptoms. He had been sniffing volatile inhalants since 3 years ago, but he had quit sniffing 10 months ago. However he has reexperienced visual and auditory hallucinations without sniffing inhalant since 8 months ago. He had no family history of schizophrenia. The psychiatric examination revealed that he had positive symptoms of schizophrenia, such as visual hallucination, auditory hallucinations, delusion of being controlled, delusional perception, and somatic hallucination/delusion, but did not show negative symptoms. It was difficult to diagnose this case as schizophrenia or inhalant-induced psychotic disorder. This case may suggest that the positive symptoms are important manifestations of psychotic disorder due to volatile inhalant abuse. We also suggest that the psychotic symptoms of chronic inhalant abuse are serious and potentially irreversible.