A M; Georgiadis, D (2008). Serum cholesterol levels do not influence outcome or recovery in acute ischemic stroke. Neurological Research, 30(1):82-84. Objective: To examine the influence of admission serum cholesterol levels (SCL) on severity of initial neurological deficit, neurological outcome at month 3 and neurological recovery in patients with acute first-ever ischemic stroke. Methods: Prospectively collected data from 889 consecutive patients with first-ever acute ischemic stroke were

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... ospectively analysed. Patients who suffered a recurrent ischemic stroke (n522) or died (n530) during the follow-up period were excluded from this study. Age, gender, arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, smoking, stroke etiology, SCL and severity of neurological deficit, using the National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), at presentation (NIHSS 0 ) and after 3 months (NIHSS 1 ), were assessed. Neurological recovery was defined as difference in NIHSS score (D NIHSS ), according to D NIHSS 5NIHSS 0 2 NIHSS 1 . Results: Data from 837 patients (66% men, age: 62 ¡ 14 years) were analysed. NIHSS 1 was 2.3 ¡ 1.8 and D NIHSS was 3.4 ¡ 3. Clinically insignificant correlations between SCL and NIHSS 0 (r520.13, p50.0002), NIHSS 1 (r520.09, p50.001) and D NIHSS (r520.1, p50.03) were evident. Multivariate binary logistic regression analysis revealed smoking (p50.008), stroke etiology (p50.023) and NIHSS 0 (p,0.001) but not age, gender, arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus or SCL as predictors for D NIHSS . Conclusion: Our data suggest that SCL in patients with acute ischemic stroke are not associated with neurological deficit on admission, outcome or neurological recovery. [Neurol Res 2008; 30: 82-84]