Assessment of relationship between C-reactive protein to albumin ratio and 90-day mortality in patients with acute ischaemic stroke.

Abstract

It is now known that inflammation is involved in the pathophysiology of acute ischaemic stroke (AIS). It has been proven that CRP and albumin alone are useful in predicting a prognosis for stroke patients. A combination of these two parameters, namely the ratio of CRP to albumin (CAR), is believed to be a more accurate indicator of inflammatory status than CRP or albumin alone, and may be more valuable than either of them separately in predicting the prognosis of ıschaemic stroke patients. However, the role of CAR as a predictor of mortality in patients with AIS remains unclear. We retrospectively enrolled 260 patients who were referred to our clinic within the first 24 hours of symptom presentation and who were diagnosed with AIS between January 2015 and December 2018. The patient group was classified into two groups according to 90-day mortality. These groups were compared in terms of C-reactive protein, albumin, and CAR. The C-reactive protein and CAR values were higher, and the albumin level was lower, in non-surviving patients. The CAR value was also found to be a significant independent variable of 90-day mortality in patients with AIS (p < 0.001). The optimum cut-off value of CAR in predicting the 90-day mortality for patients with AIS was 0.50, with 64.1% sensitivity and 56.2% specificity. Our study demonstrated that a high CAR value is an independent predictor of 90-day mortality in patients with AIS.