Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: Nowadays, stroke can be considered as the one of the major causes of disability and mortality worldwide. However, relationship between serum C-reactive protein (CRP) level with stroke early prognosis has not been well studied, especially in Iran. Therefore, the present study aimed to study the relationship between CRP level of serum in patients with acute stroke at first 24h of admission and stroke early prognosis.

Methods: This prospective cross-sectional study was performed on 50 patients with acute stroke who were admitted at Emergency Ward of Shahid Rajaie Hospital, in Tonekabon City, Iran, between May 2013 to July 2014. In first step, valid clinical diagnosis was made based on CT scan and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the patients. The ethical observations were considered for all patients. The serum level of CRP was measured by standard method, at first 24h of the admission. Clinical information and risk factors (age, gender, type of stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus) was detected for each patient. On discharge, early prognosis by modified Rankin Scale (mRS) (mRS< 3= good and mRS≥ 3= bad) was also recognized. In this study, statistical analysis was performed using SPSS software, and logistic regression method was used (P< 0.05).

Results: The results of this study showed that 38% of the patients were 70-80 years old. Also, 52% of the patients were male and 48% were female. The serum CRP level of patients at the first 24h of admission increased in all studied patients. The mean of the serum CRP level was 12.82 that were higher than the normal range. The statistical analysis showed that there was no significant relationship between the serum CRP level and the stroke early prognosis.

Conclusion: Although the serum CRP level was not recognized as an anticipator factor for stroke prognosis at this study, it is recommended to performance of more studies by case-study method on this setting.