Abstract: Objective To investigate the correlation between nutritional status and stroke-associated infections (SAI) in the elderly patients with acute stroke. Methods The patients with acute stroke aged over 70 years who were admitted to the hospital within 24 h of disease attack from January 2018 to June 2020 were retrospectively enrolled in this study. The baseline nutritional status of all patients was assessed by using the mini nutritional assessment short-form (MNA-SF). Then, all patients were divided into normal nutritional status group, malnutrition risk group and malnutrition group. At the same time, the baseline clinical data of the patients in the three groups, including stroke type, demography, laboratory examination and the incidence of SAI were collected and analyzed. Moreover, the risk factors of SAI were identified by multivariate Logistic regression, so as to determine the correlation between nutritional status and SAI. Results This study included 233 patients with a mean age of 77.02±6.60 years, ranging 70-90 years, and 142(60.9%) patients were male. There were 51(21.9%) patients with concomitant SAI. According to MNA-SF assessment, 34.0% of the patients with malnutrition presented with SAI, while 26.2% of the patients with malnutrition risk presented with SAI. Compared with the patients with normal nutrition(12.7%), the incidence rate of SAI in the three groups was statistically different (P=0.007). Multivariate analysis showed that malnutrition risk (OR=3.401,95%CI=1.414-8.181) and malnutrition (OR=4.088,95%CI=1.612-10.363) were the risk factors of SAI. Conclusions The elderly patients with acute stroke who have malnutrition and malnutrition risk are identified as the high-risk group of SAI. Nutritional support should be implemented as early as possible for such patients.

Key words: aged, nutritional status, stroke-associated infections, mini-nutritional assessment short form