OBJECTIVES: Published utilities for the same health condition vary across studies. The purpose of this study was to find the factors that were related to utilities using the case of colorectal cancer. METHODS: We did systematic review first to summarize the literature on the utilities of colorectal cancer and ran meta-regression to analyze the factors affecting the utilities of colorectal cancer. We searched the literature published up until December, 2010 in Medline, Science Direct, CINAHL, EMBASE, and KoreaMed using the combinations of keywords, one set of keywords representing colorectal cancer and the other representing utilities. In total, 88 abstracts were retrieved and 57 were excluded after the abstract review and 15 studies were excluded after the full-text review. Finally, 228 utility scores in 16 studies were included in the meta-regression. For each of the 228 utilities, information was recorded on its cancer stage, cancer type, cancer treatment, adverse reaction, remission, definition of the lower bound, definition of the upper bound, respondent, preference elicitation method, source of utility, and survey method. Fixed effect model was used to control for the correlations within the same study. RESULTS: Compared to stage 1, stage 3, 4, and best supportive care state had lower utilities. Colorectal cancer had the higher utilities than either colon cancer or rectal cancer. Adverse reaction was related to lower utilities. Other definition of the upper bound than perfect health was related to higher utilities. Compared to TTO, HALex had lower utilities and HUI had higher utilities. On the other hand, the other factors were not significantly related to the level of utilities. CONCLUSIONS: In the case of colorectal cancer, utilities were affected by cancer stage, cancer type, adverse reaction, definition of upper bound, and preference elicitation method. In practice, we should mind that characteristics of health condition and utility measurement may affect the level of utilities when we use utilities from the literature.