For resectable colorectal cancer (CRC), the standard treatment is perioperative adjuvant treatment and complete resection. For unresectable CRC, the standard treatment is systemic chemotherapy. The detection of promising biomarkers is necessary for optimizing the management of CRC and improving patient survival. If physicians can detect useful biomarkers, patients with CRC may benefit from more aggressive or less toxic treatment. Recent studies have shown that the inflammatory and nutritional status both influence the short and long-term oncological outcomes of patients with CRC during perioperative and/or chemotherapy. The utility of several tools for the evaluation of the inflammation and nutritional status has been reported. The introduction of such tools in the management of CRC could have a beneficial impact on postoperative surgical complications or adverse events of chemotherapy. An understanding of the characteristics of each of these evaluations is necessary for their introduction in daily clinical practice. The present report summarizes the background and current status of nutrition and inflammation evaluation tools and future perspectives on their application in the management of patients with CRC.Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide (1, 2). Curative resection and perioperative adjuvant treatment are standard treatments for resectable CRC, while chemotherapy is the standard treatment for unresectable CRC (3, 4). The prognosis of CRC is gradually improving, and the survival of more than half of patients with CRC is limited and poor after diagnosis. Therefore, CRC patients with risk factors for recurrence require more aggressive treatment and management.Recently, the nutritional and inflammatory status during treatment has been recognized as an important factor for both short-and long-term oncological outcomes in various malignancies (5-7). So far, various nutritional and inflammation assessment tools, such as the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS), Prognostic Nutritional Index (PNI), Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT score), C-reactive protein Albumin ratio (CAR), and Albumin/Globulin Ratio (AGR), have been developed and evaluated in gastrointestinal cancers, including CRC. If physicians introduce these nutritional and inflammation assessment tools in daily clinical practice, CRC patients may be able to receive optimized treatments that are more aggressive in comparison to standard treatment. However, each nutritional and inflammatory evaluation tool has its own clinical characteristics. Therefore, physicians need to understand the characteristics of each nutritional and inflammation evaluation tool before their introduction into daily clinical practice.This review summarizes the background, current status, and future perspectives of nutritional and inflammatory assessment tools for CRC treatment.
Clinical Impact of the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS) for CRC TreatmentThe Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS) was first reported b...