Objective To investigate the clinical significance of plasma lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 (LP-PLA2) determination in patients with ischemic cerebral stroke(ICS).Methods 124 patients with ICS (ICS group)admitted to Dongfeng Huaguo Hospital in Shiyan City from Jan.2011 to June.2014 and 50 patients with hemorrhagic stroke (hemor-rhagic group)were as the research objects,and 50 healthy controls at the same time were as the control group,compared the plasma Lp-PLA2 levels between the three groups,and compared carotid artery atherosclerotic plaque and plasma Lp-PLA2 levels in patients with different severity of ICS.Results The levels of plasma Lp-PLA2 of the patients of the ICS group,the hemorrhage group and the control group were 58.4±9.6 g/L,30.5±9.2 g/L and 18.7±8.3 g/L,respectively.There were significant differences between the groups (F = 16.741,P = 0.000).The level of plasma Lp-PLA2 of the patients of the plaque group was higher than that of the non-plaque group (66.3 ±9.7 g/L vs 54.1±10.3 g/L,t=5.775,P =0.000),and the unstable plaque group was higher than that of the stable plate group (72.4±9.5 g/L vs 62.8±10.1 g/L,t=4.797,P =0.000).The plasma Lp-PLA2 level of patients with light,medium,heavy ICS were 48.4± 9.2 g/L,60.9 ± 9.6 g/L and 74.5±10.3 g/L,respectively,and the difference was statistically significant between the three groups (F = 13.629,P =0.000).The plasma levels of Lp-PLA2 were positively correlated with NIHSS scores in patients with ICS (r=0.716,P <0.05).Lp-PLA2 in diagnosis of ICS area under the ROC curve was 0.904,the optimal critical value was 45.2 μg/L,the sen-sitivity and specificity were 81.5% and 80.2%.Conclusion The determination of plasma LP-PLA2 has a good effect in di-agnosis of ICS,the plasma level of ICS can be responsed the severity of the patients and the stability of atherosclerotic plaque.