Inflammation-based factors and prognosis in patients with colorectal cancer.

Several parameters for predicting survival in patients with colorectal cancer have been identified, including the performance status, age, gender and tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage. Although the TNM stage is important and useful for predicting the prognosis and determining the appropriate treatment, it is well known that the survival time varies widely, even in patients with the same stage of disease. Therefore, the identification of new parameters capable of more precisely predicting patient survival is needed to help select the optimal treatment, especially in patients in the advanced stage of disease.