TNF and ischemic stroke: Adding to the discrepancy in the literature on peripheral TNF levels in ischemic stroke patients, increased plasma TNF correlated with infarct volume in some studies [71] but not in others [26, 55]; with stroke severity at admission in some studies [34, 41, 62] but not in others [72]; and with functional outcome in some studies [41, 71], but not in others [26, 66].