With respect to the measurement of the systemic inflammatory response the combination of C-reactive protein and albumin (glasgow prognostic score (mGPS)) has been shown to improve the prediction of cancer-specific survival in a variety of common solid tumours (McMillan, 2008) including primary operable colorectal cancer (McMillan et al, 2007; Ishizuka et al, 2007). Here, CRP is linked to cancer.