3.1 Baseline characteristics
From 167 cases and 66 controls that were recruited for the PreDicta cohort, a total of 140 asthmatic children (82 males, 58%) and 53 healthy controls (22 males, 42%) were included in this study. The reason for the exclusion of 27 subjects was insufficient blood samples for cell culture experiments. The respective number of cases and controls per study center is: Athens 36/13, Erlangen 22/15, Ghent 20/13, Lodz 25/4 and Turku 37/8. Mean age at recruitment was 5.3 ± 0.7 in asthmatic and 5.0 ± 0.8 in healthy children. The majority of asthma cases additionally suffered from allergic rhinitis (63.5%) and more than half of them (52.1%) reported atopic dermatitis, while 31.4% had experienced adverse food reactions.
Table 1 shows demographic characteristics, weekly vigorous PA and daily TVA as well as asthma control and allergic comorbidities, as gathered through questionnaires at inclusion.