C-reactive protein is a negative independent factor in patients with stage IV colorectal cancer undergoing oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy.

To determine the clinical significance of C-reactive protein (CRP) concentration in patients with stage IV colorectal cancer (CRC) undergoing oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy. We retrospectively reviewed the medical charts of 112 patients with stage IV CRC who had received modified FOLFOX6 (5-fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, leucovorin) between January 2006, and December 2010 and used Cox's proportional hazard model to determine for independent prognostic factors of survival. We generated receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves to determine the optimal cut-off for the discrimination of the duration of survival by CRP concentration. According to the multivariate analysis, increased CRP concentration (p=0.04) and non-curative surgery (p<0.01) were independent unfavorable factors for survival, and the optimal cut-off CRP concentration according to dichotomized duration of survival (3-24 months) ranged from 0.8 to 1.2 mg/dl. Pre-chemotherapy CRP concentrations may be useful for predicting survival of patients with stage IV CRC.