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.