Objective To reveal the influencing factors of preoperative lymph node metastasis of colorectal cancer by the smoothly clipped absolute deviation (SCAD) penalty technology. Methods Clinical data of 252 patients with colorectal cancer were analyzed retrospectively. By using SCAD technology, the main influencing factors of the lymph node metastasis were sifted and the model parameters were also calculated. Results The statistical results showed that the effects of abnormality in abdominal pain, bloody stools, carcinoembryonic antigen, and serum total bile acid on the lymph node metastasis of colorectal cancer were statistically significant. The probability of lymph node metastasis of patients with colorectal cancer was calculated based on the model. Conclusion The results of SCAD can be clinically applied to preoperative estimation of the possibility of lymph node metastasis for patients with colorectal cancer and guidance of the preoperative intervention therapy.