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There is a lack of local clinical epidemiological data describing the different heart failure (HF) phenotypes in Bulgaria.

Background. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the hepatic manifestation of metabolic syndrome (MetS), but its influence on the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases (CVD) is not fully clarifed at present. The obesity growth in all economically developed countries is connected with NAFLD, which is found in 20-40% of adults and is also associated with increasing CVD risk. The objective is to study the pathophysiological mechanism of NAFLD in connection with increased CVD risk and intensity of the liver fbrosis. Material and methods. A total of 129 patients with obesity and MetS aged from 27 to 59 years old were investigated and the correlation of fbrosis intensity (according to the METAVIR scoring system) with glucose metabolism parameters and pro-inflammatory cytokines in plasma was estimated. Results. It has been found a positive correlation between the intensity of liver fbrosis and concentration of pro-inflammatory cytokines in plasma. The levels of TNF-α, IL-6 and PAI-1 in plasma of patients with F3-4 were signifcantly higher not only compared to F0– patients (p

Zoran Sterjev1, Gordana Kiteva Trencevska2, Emilija Cvetkovska2, Igor Petrov2, Igor Kuzmanovski2, Jasmina T Ribarska3, Aleksandra K Nestorovska1, Nadica Matevska1, Zorica Naumovska1, Suzana Jolevska-Trajkovic3, Aleksandar Dimovski1, Ljubica Suturkova11Institute of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy Skopje, Republic of Macedonia; 2Clinic of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia; 3Institute of Pharmaceutical Analysis, Faculty of Pharmacy Skopje, Republic of MacedoniaAbstract: The ABCB1 gene encodes the P-glycoprotein (Pgp) protein, which is thought to transport various antiepileptic drugs. The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) (C3435T) in exon 26 of this gene correlates with the altered expression levels of P-glycoprotein, range of drug response and clinical conditions. In order to investigate the influence of this polymorphism on the susceptibility to and efficacy of carbamazepine therapy, we evaluated the allelic frequency and genotype distribution of this variant in 162 epilepsy patients from the Republic of Macedonia. Statistically significant differences were detected neither in the allelic frequency and genotype distribution between carbamazepine-resistant and carbamazepine-responsive epilepsy patients nor between the subgroups of carbamazepine (CBZ)-responsive patients treated with different CBZ doses. However, the T-allele was enriched in CBZ-responsive patients who required higher maintenance CBZ doses, This observation was substantiated by the findings that the median total plasma levels were the lowest in patients with CC (20 µmol/L) followed by CT (23 µmol/L) and TT (29 µmol/L) genotypes. Patients with a CC genotype also had a higher likelihood of response compared to patients with CT or TT genotypes over a wide range (400–1000 mg/day) of initial doses of CBZ. The T allele showed a reduced expression of ~5% compared to the C allele in peripheral blood mononuclear cells in heterozygotes for the variant. This difference might be translated into ~10% difference in homozygotes for the variant, which would explain the trend towards a dose-dependent efficacy of the CBZ treatment in patients with different genotypes. A larger prospective study is warranted to clarify the clinical utility of a genotype-specific individualized CBZ therapy.Keywords: multidrug resistance protein 1 (MDR1), ABCB1 C3435T polymorphism, epilepsy treatment, carbamazepine

The low quality of the new rolling bearings leads to additional costs for electric motor repair, and additional expenses connected with the technological process, value of which can reach from several thousand to tens of thousand dollars. To increase detection, the reliability of rolling bearing defects of asynchronous motors, complex vibration diagnostics was used at informative frequencies in the vibration frequency and amplitude in the range of 5-5000 Hz. Based on the diagnostic model of rolling bearings the software program “Tayamnitsa” is developed, which allows to calculate the diagnostic frequency corresponding to certain defects, determine the defect level and form a diagnostic table for defects. Vibration diagnostics of new and used rolling bearings have been conducted for various regional enterprises and power plants. It has been determined that 40-50% of used bearings are removed in good technical condition. When new bearings were diagnosed in the 500-5000 Hz range, only 48.4% of the bearings are considered serviceable due to the low accuracy class of metal processing and unacceptably high vibration level.