When patients with a raised inflammatory marker (n = 46,092) had a second inflammatory marker test taken within 90 days (n = 13,873), the cancer incidence was greatest if the second test result was further increased, at 6.86% (5.73–7.99) for CRP, 5.04% (4.01–6.08) for ESR and 4.13% (2.00–6.26) for PV. Here, ESR1 is linked to cancer.