Reply to the letter from Blay et al. Pretreatment serum CRP and response to interleukin 2

Sir- We read with interest the letter from Blay et al. confirming our initial findings in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer that pretreatment measurement of serum C-reactive protein (CRP) levels could predict which patients with metastatic renal cancer would respond to rIL-2-based therapy. Our preliminary data have also indicated that there are differences in other acute-phase proteins (albumin, transferrin, retinol-binding protein and transferrin) between patients who do or do not respond to rIL-2 treatments. Furthermore, we have also found that these measurements not only predict tumour response (in terms of reduction in tumour volume) but also predict the survival of these patients following treatment.