Background: Biochemical markers of acute neuronal injury may aid in the diagnosis and management of cerebrovascular stroke. Neuron specific enolase (NSE) is one such marker which is released in the blood in acute neuronal injury and can be estimated in the serum of patients to assess the short-term neurological outcome. This study was carried out on patients of acute cerebrovascular stroke with the aim to compare NSE levels in normal subjects with that in cerebrovascular stroke patients. Methods: 60 subjects investigated in the study included 30 cerebrovascular stroke patients who were admitted within 72 hours of onset of stroke symptoms, in the Emergency Department and the Department of Neurology at HIMS, and 30 healthy controls. Serum NSE levels of cases and controls were determined on day 1 and day 7 using DRG-NSE ELISA kit. Statistical analysis was performed using the unpaired 't' test on SPSS software for windows version 17.0 Results: There was a significant difference in the levels of serum NSE between cases and controls (p<0.001).The mean levels of serum NSE in controls were 2.25±2.12 ng/ml and in cases at the time of admission were 89.18±46.89 ng/ml . The normal range of serum NSE is 0-12 ng/ml. It was also observed that the levels of serum NSE showed no difference in males or females or among different age groups. Conclusion: This study showed that estimation of serum NSE levels can be used as an early marker of neuronal damage in acute cerebrovascular stroke patients.

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