Association Between Cystatin C and the Risk of Ischemic Stroke: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Ischemic stroke is a disease that affects people’s health and quality of life. Cystatin C has been found as a new biomarker of cardiovascular disease. We performed this meta-analysis to assess the relationship between cystatin C and the risk of ischemic stroke. The studies on looking at the association between cystatin C and ischemic stroke were identified from inception to November 18, 2018. We performed a random-effects meta-analysis using mean difference. Nine studies with a total of 3773 ischemic stroke patients were included into the meta-analysis. Our results showed that patients with ischemic stroke had significantly higher serum cystatin C concentrations compared with the participants without ischemic stroke (pooled mean difference, 0.11; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.00–0.22; P = 0.04), in particular acute ischemic stroke and subclinical cerebral infarction (mean difference, 0.23; 95% CI, 0.11–0.36; P = 0.0003 and mean difference, 0.07; 95% CI, 0.05–0.09; P < 0.00001, respectively). Cystatin C was associated with ischemic stroke, and it could be considered a predictor for the risk of ischemic stroke, especially in acute ischemic stroke and subclinical cerebral infarction.