Materials and Methods
HUMAN STUDIES
The present study is part of the prospective study PreDicta
(Post-infectious immune reprogramming and its association with
persistence and chronicity of respiratory allergic diseases). The
working package 1 (WP1) relates to studies in pre-school children with
and without asthma. The study WP1 in Erlangen was approved by the local
Ethics Committee of the Universitätsklinikum Friedrich-Alexander
Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (Re-No 4435) and it is registered in
German Clinical Trials Register (www.germanctr.de: DRKS00004914).
Parents/ guardians of all participants gave their informed consent. Two
cohorts of pre-school children (age 4-6 years) with and without asthma
were analysed (control children n=22 and asthma children n=24). The
recruitment of the subjects, inclusion and exclusion criteria as well as
the timescale for clinical visits and data collection along with the
clinical aspects and characteristics were previously described6, 18,19.