Data collection
Data of demographic features (age, gender, weight, and height), risk
factors (diabetes mellitus, hypertension, atrial fibrillation, excessive
alcohol consumption, smoking), history of concomitant cardiovascular
diseases (coronary heart disease and heart failure), blood pressure and
stroke severity were collected at admission. Stroke severity on
admission was assessed with the National Institutes of Health Stroke
Scale (NIHSS) (3). Immediately after admission, white blood cell,
hemoglobin, platelet, glucose, albumin, estimated Glomerular Filtration
Rate, uric acid, triglyceride, total cholesterol, high density
lipoprotein cholesterol were measured and serum levels of TSH, FT3, and
FT4 in the following morning were collected. In addition, head computed
tomography or magnetic resonance imaging was performed at admission. All
the measurements were performed by the laboratory and radiological
staffs in our hospital. The stroke subtype was determined by the Trial
of Org 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment subtype classification system
(18). We classified ischemic stroke as large-artery atherosclerosis,
cardio-embolism, small-artery occlusion and unclassified (other
determined or undetermined etiology) subtypes.