Possible Clinical Implications of Hippus in Psychiatric Patients. JohnF.Delaney MD MPH DrPH Rose Hammond Delaney MBA DrPH

Hippus is the oscilliation of the iris in the presence of light. Hippus was not thought to be a pathologic finding and was treated as an incidental finding. Recently, Denny found that medical patients with hippus were more likely to die after discharge than those patients that did not have hippus, suggesting that hippus may not be so harmless. Denny suggested that this should be studied further and was planning to do so. Hippus has never been evaluated in psychiatric patients and there is no literature to support this. We examined 104 patients admitted to a psychiatric unit. The incidence of hippus in Denny's series was 52/100,000. In this pilot of 104 patients, our incidence was 20/104 or 19.3%. The majority of patients were diagnosed as Major Depressive Disorder. None of the patients in the series had died 30 days after discharge. In this limited series, the incidence seems much higher than the medical results, and there were no deaths in this group after 30 days after discharge. The high incidence suggests a possible relationship with psychiatric illness, but like Denny's series, more studies need to be performed.