CRP and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes: Tumor growth may be largely promoted with the presence of inflammatory factors, which, in turn, may further have an adverse effect on the systemic inflammatory response.23 Moreover, being proved by recent reports, elevated serum CRP levels also have a close relationship with some other prognostic factors, for instance, distant metastasis, tumor size, lymph node metastasis, vascular invasion, and tumor recurrence.24–26 Those findings suggested that an elevated serum CRP level could serve as an indicator of the malignant potential of tumors and their poor prognosis.