Objective To explore clinical characteristics of patients with cerebral infarction(CI) complicated with metabolic syndrome(MS) and their correlation with severity of cerebrovascular stenosis. Methods A total of 585 cases with CI were retrospectively studied. The patients were catogorized in to groups with and without MS according to NCEP-ATPⅢ diagnostic criteria. Severity of cerebrovascular were evaluated by CT. ResultsTwo hundred ninty cases(49.6%) complicated with MS showed higher body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, blood pressure, serum total cholesterol(TC), triglyceride (TG), uric acid (UA), fasting blood glucose (FBG), two hours postprandial blood glucose (2 h PBG), glucosylated hemoglobin A1c(HbA1c), and lower high-densitylipoprotein-cholesterol(HDL-C) than those without MS. Larger size and multiple infarcts and more serious score of neurological deficit were shown in patients complicated with MS. Severity of cerebrovascular disease disclosed by CT was positively related to levels of waist circumferene, blood pressure, TC, TG, HbA1c, FBG and 2 h PBG while in versely related to the levels of HDL-C (r=-1.23, P