Yanling Wang, Jihong Liu, Xuemei Wang, Zongjian Liu, Fengwu Li, Fenghua Chen, Xiaokun Geng, Zhili Ji, Huishan Du, Xiaoming Hu

Stroke has high mortality and morbidity. Biomarkers are required for to predict stroke outcomes, which could help clinicians to provide rationale approaches for patient management. The dynamic changes in circulating immune cells have been reported in stroke patients and animal models of stroke. The aim of this study was to explore biomarkers to predict stroke outcomes by investigating the relationship between the frequencies of circulating immune cells and stroke outcomes. In all, 50 acute ischemic stroke (AIS) patients were enrolled. Their blood samples were collected upon hospital admission and on day 1 and day 7 after stroke, and the leukocyte subsets were analyzed by flow cytometry. The dynamic changes in some types of immune cells in the AIS course and their correlation with clinical parameters were analyzed. Blood samples from 123 age- and gender-matched healthy subjects were used as controls. The proportions of T-lymphocytes and NK cells in stroke patients were significantly lower than in healthy controls. The frequencies of B- and T-lymphocytes were negatively correlated with stroke severity at onset, including neurological deficits as assessed by National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), and infarct volume as measured by the diffusion-weighted images (DWIs) of magnetic resonance (MR). Logistic regression analysis showed that modified Rankin scale (mRs) scores, a score system for the long-term neurological dysfunctions, were negatively correlated with the percentage of B-lymphocytes at stroke onset. The proportions of B- and T-lymphocytes are associated with neurological outcomes of stroke patients and might be used as an indicator for severity and prognosis of ischemic stroke.