In Spearman correlation analysis, serum LCN2 was not significantly correlated with NIHSS score (P > 0.05) (Fig. 5A), while serum LCN2 was positively correlated with cerebral infarction volume (r = 0.161, P = 0.002) (Fig. 5B). This evidence concerns the gene LCN2 and cerebral infarction.