C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of acute-phase inflammatory response, has been suggested to be useful for early detection of cancer. A recent meta-analysis using 14 prospective studies of circulating CRP and any incident cancer, comprising 3,957 cancer cases, showed that a log unit increase in CRP was associated with a 1.1-unit increase in overall cancer risk. Inflammation-associated oxidative damage could initiate carcinogenesis, which causes inactivating mutations in tumor suppressor genes or posttranslational modifications in proteins involved in DNA repair or apoptotic control.