Prognostic value of C-reactive protein in patients with melanoma: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND

C-reactive protein (CRP) has been widely investigated for its prognostic value for melanoma, however, findings remained different. Consequently, this meta-analysis was performed for identifying its precise role in forecasting melanoma prognosis.

METHODS

We searched PubMed, Web of Science, Embase and Cochrane Library till 25 January 2025, and computed combined hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for estimating CRP's effect on forecasting overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) of melanoma.

RESULTS

Nineteen studies consisting of 4634 cases were enrolled into the present work. As suggested by our data, higher CRP showed remarkable relation to dismal OS (HR = 2.26, 95% CI = 1.89-2.71,  < 0.001) and inferior PFS (HR = 1.84, 95% CI = 1.13-2.98,  = 0.014) of melanoma patients. Subgroup analyses indicated that CRP had consistent prognostic significance of OS among various subgroups (all  < 0.05). The findings were verified to be reliable by publication bias and sensitivity analyses.

CONCLUSION

High CRP remarkably predicts dismal OS and PFS of melanoma cases, which is the promising biomarker used to forecast melanoma prognosis in clinical practice.