Associations of Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio with Cerebral Small Vessel Disease and Functional Outcome in Acute Ischaemic Stroke Patients

In AIS, admission NLR showed a possible association with higher lobar CMB burden in unadjusted analyses, but this was not robust after adjustment, and no consistent relationships were observed with other CSVD markers. Associations with functional outcomes were not uniform across tertiles, and the apparent benefit in the middle NLR tertile should be interpreted cautiously as a potentially non-linear or chance finding, indicating that NLR is not a reliable independent imaging or prognostic marker in this cohort.