Zhang H, et al. - Researchers retrospectively analyzed 266 patients diagnosed with thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) receiving standard curative radiotherapy (RT) only or concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CRT) in order to determine the therapeutic effect and survival outcome in these patients using nomogram by incorporating significant inflammatory markers. For statistical analysis, they grouped the patients depending on the median values of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio and C-reactive protein/albumin (CRP/Alb) ratio. As per the multivariate Cox analysis, independent prognostic factors for OS were CRP/Alb ratio, TNM stage and age. For the therapeutic effect and prognosis, the calibration curves of nomogram were highly consistent with actual observation and the decision curve analysis showed more potential of clinical benefit of the nomogram compared with TNM staging system. Thus findings here suggest the promising value of nomogram-integrated CRP/Alb ratio as a predictive model for the therapeutic effect and survival outcome in patients with thoracic ESCC receiving CRT or single RT.