Recent studies have indicated that inflammation-based prognostic scores, such as the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS), modified GPS (mGPS) and C-reactive protein/Albumin (CRP/Alb) ratio, platelet–lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio (NLR), have been reported to have prognostic value in patients with many types of cancer, including nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). In this study, we proposed a novel inflammation-based stage, named I stage, for patients with NPC. A retrospective study of 409 newly-diagnosed cases of NPC was conducted. The prognostic factors (GPS, mGPS, CRP/Alb ratios, PLR, and NLR) were evaluated using univariate and multivariate analyses. Then, according to the results of the multivariate analyses, we proposed a I stage combination of independent risk factors (CRP/Alb ratio and PLR). The I stage was calculated as follows: patients with high levels of CRP/Alb ratio (>0.03) and PLR (>146.2) were defined as I2; patients with one or no abnormal values were defined as I1 or I0, respectively. The relationships between the I stage and clinicopathological variables and overall survival (OS) were evaluated. In addition, the discriminatory ability of the I stage with other inflammation-based prognostic scores was assessed using the AUCs (areas under the curves) analyzed by receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves. The p value of