Introduction: Stroke remains the second most common cause of death and the leading cause of disability worldwide. Given the large burden of disability following stroke, a need exists to identify clinical biomarkers so that individualized post-ischemic stroke treatment regimens can be developed and aimed at maximizing function and quality of life. A potential prognostic biomarker of ischemic stroke (IS) is C-reactive protein (CRP), which is currently used for evaluating pathological inflammation and has been extensively studied in relationship to the progression of atherosclerosis. Methods: A total of 120 randomly selected patients of acute ischemic stroke confirmed by radiological investigations and satisfying inclusion criteria, getting admitted in the department of General Medicine, Government Medical College, Thrissur after getting ethical clearance from IRB was studied. All the participants were subjected to thorough clinical examination and all routine blood investigations including complete blood count, ESR, LFT, RFT, serum electrolytes, Serum CRP, fasting lipid profile and RBS will be obtained. Serum CRP is done by latex slide test. The collected data was entered in excelsheet. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 22 trial. Quantitative variables were reported as mean and standard deviation. Qualitative variables were expressed as frequency, proportion, or percentage. Results: The association of CRP levels at 48 hours showed 60 to 80 years with higher CRP levels, which is statistically significant (p value <0.001). The gender showed females with significantly (p value <0.001) higher CRP levels than males. The duration of hospital stay showed more than or equal to 5 days hospital admission means there is more chance of have higher CRP levels, which is statistically significant (p value <0.0011). The high MRS at admission and at discharge showed a statistically significant (p value <0.001) association with having more CRP score. Similar to MRS NIHSS also showed high CRP levels when the NIHSS was at higher spectrum, and this was statistically significant (p value <0.001). Hence high CRP levels are an indicator for stroke mortality and morbidity. Conclusion: Our study has shown that CRP level has direct correlation and statistical association with the mortality and morbidity of the patients with ischemic stroke (as evidenced with MRS and NIHSS
scores).
