Higher pre-treatment CRP level (CRP≥5.0 mg/L) was closely related with pathological tumor status (P<0.001), pathologic lymph node metastasis with ECS (P = 0.025), bone invasion (P<0.001), skin invasion (P<0.001) and tumor depth (>10 mm vs. ≤10 mm, P<0.001). Here, CRP is linked to metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.