Predictive role of high sensitive C-reactive protein in early onset mortality after ischemic stroke

BACKGROUND: High sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) is a systemic inflammatory marker that is produced in a large amount by hepatocytes in response to interleukin-1 (IL-1), IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor after ischemic stroke. METHODS: Measurement of hs-CRP in the first 24 hours of onset in 162 patients suffering from ischemic stroke was done. Relation of CRP with the risk of early mortality, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), stroke subtypes and other factors was determined. RESULTS: Regarding to ROC curve analysis, appropriate cut-off point for predicting patients’ short time mortality was equal to 2.15 mg/dl in this study. Significantly increased rate of mortality by 13.3 times was seen in patients with simultaneous CRP > 2.15 mg/dl and NIHSS > 10. CONCLUSION: The Result of this study showed that there is a direct association between hs-CRP and mortality within the first week after stroke. Measuring hs-CRP within the first hours after stroke increases the predicting rate of early mortality risk with cut-off point of 2.15.