CRP and cancer: However, after correction for several other variables like age, several comorbidities, dialysis initiation at the ICU and baseline blood values such as albumin, CRP, Hb and eGFR, this correlation between vascular access and mortality is no longer significant, whereas age, congestive heart failure, cancer and CRP still remain significantly correlated with mortality. Therefore this study suggests that the worse outcome associated with dialysis catheters might be due to other patient factors and not due to the dialysis access itself.