Materials/patients and methods. Fifty-two consecutively enrolled patients with persistent asthma were included in a cross-sectional proof of concept study. Inflammatory asthma phenotypes were recognized by inflammatory cell counts in induced sputum. Breath-prints were analyzed by discriminant analysis on principal component reduction, resulting in cross-validated accuracy values. Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) was calculated.
Legal and ethical aspects The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki principles (18th Word Medical Assembly, 1964) and was approved by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee (approval number: IIBSP/10/122/1161) of our institution. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study and personal identification data were anonymized.
