Role of C-reactive protein as a biomarker for renal cell carcinoma

The presence of a systemic inflammatory response has been thought to indicate poor prognosis in renal cell carcinoma, based on the assumption that the processes underlying such a response play important roles in the progression of renal cell carcinoma. C-reactive protein (CRP) is a representative acute-phase reactant whose concentration can be objectively measured using a variety of reliable standardized assays. To show that CRP could be an indicator of normal or pathologic processes, recent studies have revealed that CRP is a significant prognostic factor for metastasis and mortality in patients with renal cell carcinoma. Incorporating CRP levels into prognostic algorithms could make those algorithms simpler without reducing their predictive accuracy. Furthermore, CRP kinetics, the analysis of dynamic changes in CRP concentrations, has been shown to generate valuable information relevant to prognosis, specifically information on the likelihood of tumor aggressiveness. Therefore, dynamic changes of CRP concentration could indicate clinical pharmacologic response to therapeutic intervention. Taken together, we could conclude that CRP is a significant biomarker for renal cell carcinoma.