CRP and pulmonary emphysema: In order to explore potential confounding variables on the hs-CRP values, we observed that PD patients with diabetes mellitus (p = 0.130), hypertension (p = 0.844), coronary heart disease (p = 0.405), emphysema (p = 0.365), asthma (p = 0.184), hepatic conditions (p = 0.888) or cancer (p = 0.354) had non-significant differences in serum levels of this marker.