Soluble lectin‐like oxidized low‐density Lipoproteinreceptor‐1 and recurrent stroke: A nested case–control study

MAIN PROBLEM: The prognostic value of soluble lectin‐like oxidized low‐density lipoproteinreceptor‐1 (sLOX‐1) for stroke was unclearly. This study aimed to investigate the association between sLOX‐1 and recurrent stroke in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) or transient ischemic attack (TIA). METHODS: Data were obtained from the Third China National Stroke Registry. Eligible cases consisted of 400 patients who developed recurrent stroke within 1‐year follow‐up, 800 controls were selected using age‐ and sex‐matched with a 1:2 case–control ratio. Conditional logistic regressions were used to evaluate the association between sLOX‐1 and recurrent stroke. RESULTS: Among 1200 patients included in this study, the median (interquartile range) of sLOX‐1 was 247.12 (132.81–413.58) ng/L. After adjustment for conventional confounding factors, the odds ratio with 95% confidence interval in the highest tertile versus the lowest tertile was 2.23 (1.61–3.08) for recurrent stroke, 2.31 (1.64–3.24) for ischemic stroke, 2.30 (1.66–3.19) for combined vascular events within 1‐year follow‐up. Furthermore, the addition of sLOX‐1 to a conventional risk model had an incremental effect on predictive value for recurrent stroke (C‐statistics 0.76, p < 0.0001; integrated discrimination improvement 13.38%, p < 0.0001; net reclassification improvement 55.39%, p < 0.0001). Similar results were observed when the timepoint was set up as 3 months. Subgroup analysis showed the association between higher sLOX‐1 and recurrent stroke was more pronounced in patients with a history of stroke (p for interaction = 0.0062). CONCLUSIONS: sLOX‐1 was positively associated with the risk of recurrent stroke, which may be a candidate biomarker to improve risk stratification of recurrent stroke.