Study participants
We included 17 pediatric patients with PASC (further referred as PASC) and 13 convalescent COVID-19 pediatric subjects without PASC symptomatic (further referred as control) treated in the Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Outpatient Clinic at the Department of Pediatrics I, University Hospital Essen from April 2021 to December 2021. Seventeen patients, who met the criteria of long COVID according to the German Association of the Scientific Medical Societies (AWMF) and NICE guidelines (18,19) were recruited as PASC cohort. Patients with at least two symptoms, which could not be explained by an alternative diagnosis were included. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University Hospital Essen (21-9998_1-KOBO & 22-10581-BO). Written informed consent was obtained from all participants/caretakers. Demographic and clinical characteristics are provided in tables 1 and 2.