Functional status is one of the key points for preoperative risk assessment in major surgery. Objective measures such as DASI questionnaires, NT-proBNP testing and cardiopulmonary exercise testing became more popular for analysis of functional capa-bilities instead of subjective assessment due to its low sensitivity. This review is devoted to the role of ergospirometry in patient functional status assessment and its prognostic value before colorectal cancer surgery. Searching for literature data was performed in the PubMed, Clinical Trials, Google Scholar, eLibrary, CyberLeninka databases between 2000 and 2024. We found 423 articles and enrolled 46 ones. There were 6 randomized clinical trials, 19 retrospective clinical trials, 6 population-based studies, 2 me-ta-analyses, 4 systematic reviews and 8 non-systematic reviews. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.