Differences of Circulating Inflammatory Markers be- tween Large- and Small Vessel Disease in Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke

licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Reproduction is permitted for personal, noncommercial use, provided that the article is in whole, unmodified, and properly cited. Received: 2013.05.08; Accepted: 2013.08.12; Published: 2013.08.22 Background: The difference of inflammatory response between the pathogenesis of cerebral large- and small vessel disease after stroke remains unclear. In present study, we aim to determine the association of circulating inflammatory markers with different stroke subtype. Methods: 99 patients with non-cardioembolic stroke were divided into large artery athero-sclerosis (LAA) and small-artery occlusion (SAO) according to TOAST classification. A panel of plasma inflammatory markers including leukocyte, lymphocyte, CRP, fibrinogen, D-dimer, CD40L, IFN-γ, IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, IL-17 and TNF-α were measured within 72 hours following cerebral ischemia. The relation of their levels in plasma with stroke subtype was further studied. All sta-tistical data analysis was performed by SPSS 17.0 software. Results: We found that only CRP were closely associated with stroke subtype (p<0.05). Com-pared to SAO subgroup, the plasma levels of CRP was higher in LAA subgroup (p<0.05). The predictive efficiency of CRP more than 3.2 for LAA was 85.7 % sensitivity. The influencing factor o