CRP and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: Though no disease specific marker of cardiovascular risk has been identified, many markers of this potentially shared pathophysiologic process have been demonstrated to be present in patients with COPD including elevated c-reactive protein, [1,2] arterial stiffness, [5,7,10] and thoracic aortic calcification (TAC) [9] as well as impaired flow mediated vasodilation [6].