Systemic inflammation in colorectal cancer: Underlying factors, effects, and prognostic significance

Table 5 Selected systemic inflammation based prognostic markers in colorectal cancer

Marker	Ref.	Study design	Study population	Outcome, HR
Acute phase proteins
CRP	Woo et al[191]	Meta-analysis, 21 studies	3934 CRC patients, stage I-II	OS, HR 2.04 (1.45–2.86); CSS, HR 4.37 (2.63–7.27); DFS, HR 1.88 (0.97–3.67)
Albumin	Gupta et al[192]	Systematic review, 12 studies	3644 CRC patients, stage I-IV	Low albumin associated with worse survival (no meta-analysis conducted)
Albumin	Ghuman et al[193]	Case-case study within a prospective cohort study (AMORIS)	4764 CRC patients, stage I-IV	OS, HR 0.57 (0.29–1.14); CSS, HR 0.36 (0.16–0.85)
mGPS	Lu et al[194]	Meta-analysis, 41 studies	9839 CRC patients, stage I-IV	OS, HR 2.20 (1.88–2.57); CSS, HR 1.86 (1.59–2.17)
HP (haptoglobin)	Ghuman et al[193]	Case-case study within a prospective cohort study (AMORIS)	4764 CRC patients, stage I-IV	OS, HR 1.28 (1.08–1.51); CSS, HR 1.17 (0.95–1.45)
Blood cell count parameters
Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio	Li et al[148]	Meta-analysis, 16 studies	5897 CRC patients, stage I-IV	OS, HR 1.66 (1.36–2.02); CSS, HR 2.27 (1.75–2.96); DFS, HR 1.54, (1.18–2.02)
Lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio	Tan et al[149]	Meta-analysis, 15 studies	11783 CRC patients, stage I-IV	OS, HR 0.57 (0.52-0.62); CSS, HR 0.55 (0.32-0.95); DFS, HR 0.77 (0.70-0.84)
Platelet count	Rao et al[152]	Meta-analysis, 9 studies	3413 CRC patients, stage I-IV	OS, HR 2.11 (1.68-2.65); DFS, HR 2.51 (1.84-3.43)
Platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio	Tan et al[153]	Meta-analysis, 15 studies	3991 CRC patients, stage I-IV	OS, HR 1.53 (1.24–1.89), DFS, HR 1.68 (1.07–2.62)
Anemia	Wilson et al[150]	Meta-analysis, 12 studies	3588 CRC patients, stage I-IV	OS, HR 1.56 (1.30-1.88), DFS, HR 1.34 (1.11-1.61)
Cytokines, chemokines, and their receptors
IL6	Xu et al[23]	Meta-analysis, 10 studies	860 CRC patients, stage I-IV	OS, HR 1.76 (1.42–2.19); DFS, HR 2.97 (1.76–5.01)
TNFRSF11B (Osteoprotegerin)	Birgisson et al[20]	Prospective cohort study	261 stage II-IV CRC patients	OS, HR 3.33
Protease enzymes and their inhibitors
TIMP1	Lee et al[195]	Meta-analysis, 10 studies	1477 CRC patients, stage I-IV	OS, HR 2.25 (1.56-3.25)

CRC: Colorectal cancer; CSS: Cancer-specific survival; DFS: Disease-free survival; HR: Hazard ratio; OS: Overall survival.