The Relationships between Body Composition and the Systemic Inflammatory Response in Patients with Primary Operable Colorectal Cancer

Weight loss is recognised as a marker of poor prognosis in patients with cancer but the aetiology of cancer cachexia remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationships between CT measured parameters of body composition and the systemic inflammatory response in patients with primary operable colorectal cancer.). Systemic inflammatory response was measured by serum white cell count (WCC), neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and the Glasgow Prognostic Score (mGPS).There were no relationships between any parameter of body composition and serum WCC or NLR. There was a significant relationship between low skeletal muscle index and an elevated systemic inflammatory response, as measured by the mGPS (p = 0.001). This was confirmed by linear relationships between skeletal muscle index and both C-reactive protein (r = −0.21, p = 0.005) and albumin (r = 0.31, p