The aim of our work is to determine the total number, age, gender of the patients with the symptomatic epileptic seizures associated with brain tumours, tumour location, clinical signs and characteristics of epileptic seizures. We have analyzed medical documentation of the patients with brain tumours hospitalized at the Department of Neurology, University of Sarajevo Clinics Centre. This study is retrospective and includes time period from 1st January 2000 until 31st December 2005. During the observed period at the Department of Neurology in Sarajevo there were in total 9753 hospitalized patients, from which 101 (1,1%) patients with the brain tumour diagnosis. Average patient's age was 62,60 +/- 1,28 years. In one third of the patients (32%) were recorded epileptic seizures, without significant difference between genders. In case of symptomatic epilepsy, significantly more frequent locations of tumours were: in several lobes (28%), parietal lobe (25%), as well as frontal and temporal lobe (18,8% each), while there were no changes in cerebellum and brain stem (chi2 =7,174, p<0,05). The most prominent signs of illness in our sample were hemiparesis with the cranial nerves lesion (56,3%), speech problems (25%). Normal neurologic findings were significantly more frequent among patients with the symptomatic epilepsy (chi2 =6,349, p<0,05). The most often was a single seizure (59%), in 38% of cases there were recorded series of seizures, and only 3% of patients had status epilepticus. In relation to the type of seizures, the most often are simple partial seizures with or without secondary generalization (66%), than generalized convulsive (31%), and the rarest one are complex partial seizures (3%). Symptomatic epilepsy in case of brain tumours occurs in one third of patients, at older age, and in both genders. The lesion usually affects several lobes and cause simple partial seizures with or without secondary generalization. The most often clinical signs in case of all brain tumours are cranial nerves lesion and hemiparesis, while the normal neurologic findings are significantly dominant in the group of patients with the epileptic seizures.

Thirty percent of our subjects were diagnosed as PPD. Patients with PPD had more severe depressive symptoms during the last 3 months of pregnancy, higher rates of history of depression, PPD, postpartum blues, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, parental depression, poor social support, stressful life events during last 1 year, and problems in marriage as compared those without PPD. There was no significant difference between groups with respect to type of birth and pregnancy, history of abortion and curettage, and emotional response to oral contraceptive drugs. Conclusions: Assessing the factors that increase the liability to PPD would make it easier to detect the individuals with high risk and to provide earlier professional support to those individuals.

Introduction/Objectives: An important contribution of B cells and autoantibodies has been demonstrated in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis (MS) leading to interest in the use of such autoantibodies as diagnostic or prognostic markers. A common problem in studies of humoral immunity is that accurate detection of antibodies depends highly on the conformation of the antigens used for detection. Therefore widely used techniques, including ELISA and Western blotting, may fail to detect reactivity against epitopes displayed by native antigens expressed on myelin sheats. Here we describe a cell-based assay that specifically identifies serum antibodies directed against three major myelin autoantigens: MBP, PLP and MOG. The proposed method detects antibody binding to recombinant antigens in their native conformation on MBP, PLP and MOG transfected mammalian (hamster ovary) cells. Material and methods: Thirty-six patients with relapsing-remitting MS diagnosed according to criteria of Mc Donald were recruted. Age 38.2 and duration of the disease 7.1. Serum anti-MBP, anti-PLP and anti-MOG IgG autoantibodies were detected in MS patients and 35 healthy donors by FACS analysis. Results: Compared with healthy controls the titers of IgG autoantibodies directed against membrane-bound recombinant myelin antigens were most significantly increased for PLP (P < 0.0001), no quite significant for MBP (P < 0.05) and not significant for MOG (P < 0.7). The titers of anti-MBP antibodies were low indicating low concentration of these Ab in serum of MS patients and healthy donors, in contrast to high titers of anti-MOG antibodies in both groups suggesting a non-specific binding. Conclusions: The cell-based assay detection of autoantibodies directed against recombinant myelin antigens could be a useful tool providing the serological markers in diagnosis and progression of MS. Indeed, it could allow to obtain molecular characteristics of disease in each patient in term of an antibody response against certain myelin and non-myelin antigens. We have shown that in RRMS patients elevated level of serum antibodies against PLP is significant, what should be considered in search for specific immunomodulatory therapy in MS.

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