Elevated pre-treatment levels of high sensitivity C-reactive protein as a potential prognosticator in patients with colorectal cancer

Abstract

Elevated levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) have been described as a prognostic factor in various types of human malignancy. In the present study, the prognostic potency of CRP was validated for patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) in order to guide patient management and define high-risk populations for follow-up or for therapeutic purposes. The association between the high sensitivity-CRP (hs-CRP) levels of a total of 123 patients with CRC and their clinicopathological characteristics was explored. Subsequently, univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to investigate the survival impact of pre-treatment hs-CRP levels in this cohort study. Statistically significant correlations between the serum levels of hs-CRP and lymph node and distant metastasis (P<0.001 and P=0.012, respectively), vascular and perineural invasion (P<0.001 and P<0.001), grades (P=0.022) and clinical stages (P=0.001), but not age and gender (P=0.616 and 0.676, respectively), were found. The five-year survival rate of patients with elevated (>5.0 mg/l) hs-CRP levels was demonstrated to be significantly less than that of those in the normal group (≥5.0 mg/l) by applying the Kaplan-Meier method (13.3 versus 57.0%, log-rank test P<0.001). Furthermore, following identification as a prognostic factor through using univariate analysis, high levels of hs-CRP (P<0.001) were validated as an independent prognosticator in CRC in the present study through using multivariate analysis. Pre-treatment serum CRP levels were associated with advanced and progressed CRC patients, therefore these levels may serve as a potential prognostic marker for CRC patients.

Keywords: C-reactive protein; colorectal cancer; prognosis.

Figure 1

Survival of patients according to the pre-treatment hs-CRP levels. The five-year survival rate of patients with high serum levels of hs-CRP was 13.30%, in comparison to 57.0% of the normal group (P<0.001). hs-CRP, high sensitivity-C reactive protein.