CRP and colorectal carcinoma: We concluded that the association between CRP and CRC was not among the robust associations without suggestion of bias, as evidence of large between-study heterogeneity, small-study effects (i.e., smaller studies tended to give larger estimates of effect size compared with larger studies), and excess statistical significance (i.e., the observed number of studies with nominally statistically significant results was greater than the expected number, calculated based on the statistical power to detect a plausible effect) was identified [44••].