CRP and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes: The backward elimination procedure in the Cox regression analysis identified 6 factors (lymph node metastasis, liver metastasis, carbohydrate antigen 19-9 [CA19-9; log scale], carcinoembryonic antigen [CEA; log scale], albumin, and C-reactive protein [CRP; log scale]) in the training set.