Our objective was to assess whether neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in pretreatment blood sample, pretreatment biopsies expression of cyclin D1, EGFR, VEGF and p21, and 61 tagSNPs (genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood leukocytes or tumor tissue) could be used to predict pathologic response in the setting of rectal cancer treated in a single tertiary center with nCRT followed by surgery. The gene discussed is EGFR; the disease is rectal cancer.