Introduction:The most common clinical sign in pediatric cardiology is a heart murmur (organic and inorganic). Organic are sign of heart disease, while inorganic (basically divided into accidental and functional) murmurs occur on anatomically healthy heart.Aim:To determine the justification of the application of the methods of cardiac treatment.Patients and methods:Study included 116 children aged from 1 to 15 years, who were referred due to cardiac treatment to Pediatric Clinic, of Sarajevo University Clinical Center.Results:The first group consisted of children with innocent heart murmur, 97 (53 males). The second group consisted of patients with organic murmur, 19 (13 males). The average age of the first group was 7.69 (1.01–15.01) years old, and of the second group 3.15 (1.01- 8.06) years old, and there is a significant difference between these two groups (p <0.001). Medical history questions about potentially harmful habits of mother in pregnancy, found significant differences in the frequency of the existence of habits between the first and second groups of subjects (14.44% vs. 85.1%, p = 0.013). The values of the pulse of patients showed statistically significant difference (p = 0.012). The most common place of the murmurs’ appearance is the second left intercostal space. In the first group, the most common were vibratory (32.3%) and ejection (31.9%) and in the second the most common were holosystolic (73.7%) murmur. Analyzing the R/S ratio of V1, a significant difference among the two groups was found (mean 0.78 vs. the values for 1.45, p = 0.003). There is a significance in terms of developed hypertrophy of the heart cavities (BVH) between the two groups. The most common accidental murmur was classic vibratory Still’s murmurs (55.43%) and the most common congenital heart defects was ASD (36.8%).Conclusions:A heart murmur itself, should not be the purpose of auscultation. One of the tasks of pediatricians, pediatric cardiologists in particular would be to improve auscultation, as a sovereign method of heart murmurs assessment. Heart murmur assessment should be adapted to recognize whether heart murmur is innocent, or there is suspected or probable congenital heart defect.

boys and 49,5% girls, aged from birth to 19 years (1,63% -neonates and infants, 2,6% -toddlers, 9,95% -preschool children, 35,5% -gradeschoolers and 50,3% children in puberty and adolescence). In 68,1% of patients Holter was performed for the first time. Indications for conducting Holter were: arrhythmias in 42,2% cases, precordial pain in 23,5%, suspicion of pre-excitation and/or pre-excitation in 10%, crisis of consciousness in 8%, uncorrected congenital/acquired heart defects in 4,2%, operated heart defects in 3,7%, hypertension in 3,1% cases, control of the pacemaker in 1,63% and other causes in 3,5% cases. Discharge diagnosis after ECG Holter monitoring were: insignificant arrhythmias in 47,1% cases, wandering pacemaker in 21,3%, pre-excitation in 16,2%, benign ventricular premature beats in 6,3%, atrioventricular block in 3%, sinus pause in 2.2% cases and other arrhythmias in 3,5%. In mentioned period 57 cases of Wolf Parkinson White syndrome were registered, in 4,5% of patients antiarrhythmic therapy was administered. Radiofrequent ablation was performed in 23 cases. Conclusion: The development of pediatric cardiac surgery has initiated development of pediatric arrhythmology as imperative segment of pediatric cardiology. Continuous ECG Holter monitoring has become irreplaceable method in everyday diagnostics and therapy of arrhythmias in children.

Alzheimer's disease represents the most common age-related neurodegenerative disorder and a leading cause of progressive cognitive impairment. Predicting cognitive decline is challenging but would be invaluable in an increasingly aging population which also experiences a rising cardiovascular risk. In order to examine whether plasma measurements of one of the established biomarkers of heart failure, brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), reflect a decline in cognitive function, associated with Alzheimer's disease neurodegeneration, BNP levels were analysed, by using a novel assay called a SOMAscan, in 1. cognitively healthy, control subjects; 2. subjects with mild cognitive impairment, and 3. subjects with Alzheimer's disease. The results of our study show that the levels of the BNP were significantly different between the three types of diagnoses ( p < 0.05), whereby subjects with mild cognitive impairment had the lowest mean BNP value, and healthy subjects had the highest BNP value. Importantly, our results show that the levels of the BNP are influenced by the presence of at least one APOE4 allele in the healthy ( p < 0.05) and in the Alzheimer's disease groups of subjects ( p < 0.1). As the levels of the BNP appear to be independent of the APOE4 genotype in subjects with mild cognitive impairment, the results of our study support inclusion of measurements of plasma levels of the BNP in the list of the core Alzheimer's disease biomarkers for identification of the mild cognitive impairment group of patients. In addition, the results of our study warrant further investigations into molecular links between Alzheimer's disease-type cognitive decline and cardiovascular disorders.

Cough is one of the most common symptoms that doctor faces in working with pediatric population, and according to some characteristics of cough, doctors can often conclude localization, and sometimes even the nature of the disease that causes it. Cough is not only the physiological defense reaction, but a symptom of a disease. According to duration it can be acute, chronic and recidivist, recurrent and persistent, strong or discreet, caused by changes in body position and changes in outside temperature. Pathoanatomically it is divided into lobar, lobular, alveolar and interstitial, pathogenetically to bronchogenic and hematogenous, as well as in immuno competent and immunocompromised, and clinically on the local and inpatient (72 hours after hospital admission). Considering the contents, cough can be productive–with secretion from the respiratory tract, and unproductive-dry, without secretion. By auscultation bronchial breathing, rattle and crepitus can be heard. The primary diagnostics is radiological, posterior to anterior (P-A) and lateral footage of the chest. Laboratory findings in typical pneumonia, are characterized by leukocytosis, neutrophilia and shift of blood image to the left. Sedimentation is accelerated and C-reactive protein is elevated. The basic bacteriological diagnosis is sputum Gram’s stain and culture of sputum. In atypical pneumonia, leukocytes are usually in the normal range, and it is necessary to do serological tests (IgM and IgG antibodies). The role of doctors in primary health care is auscultation differentiation of murmurs with confirmation of doubt if there is pathological findings by laboratory tests and treatment, depending on the type of cough. Treatment is essentially pharmacological, with irrefutable importance of non-pharmacological measures.

Background: Alzheimer’s disease is a complex disorder of unclear etiology that develops in the elderly population. It is a debilitating, progressive neurodegeneration for which disease-modifying therapies do not exist. Previous studies have suggested that, for a subset of patients, dysregulation in hemostasis might be one of the molecular mechanisms that ultimately leads to the development of neurodegeneration resulting in cognitive decline that represents the most prominent symptomatic characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease. Objective: To examine a relationship between factors that are part of coagulation and anticoagulation pathways with cognitive decline that develops during Alzheimer’s disease. Methods: SOMAscan assay was used to measure levels of coagulation/anticoagulation factors V, VII, IX, X, Xa, XI, antithrombin III, protein S, protein C, and activated protein C in plasma samples obtained from three groups of subjects: 1) subjects with stable cognitively healthy function, 2) subjects with stable mild cognitive impairment, and 3) subjects diagnosed with probable Alzheimer’s disease. Results: Our results show that protein levels of coagulation factor XI are significantly increased in patients who are diagnosed with probable Alzheimer’s disease compared with cognitively healthy subjects or patients diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that significant predictors of Alzheimer’s-type diagnosis are factors IX and XI—an increase in both factors is associated with a reduction in cognitive function. Conclusion: Our study justifies further investigations of biological pathways involving coagulation/anticoagulation factors in relation to dementia, including dementia resulting from Alzheimer’s-type neurodegeneration.