Telemedicine in Service of Family Doctors in North Macedonia: Search for the New Frontier for Medical Professionals.

Introduction: Innovative medical technologies such as telemedicine, telehealth, and artificial intelligence have great potential in North Macedonia. Our nation was a leader in the region in advancing internet connections. A key barrier to wider adoption has been human resources. Material and Methods: Family doctors are skilled and trained enough to accept and use these technologies in everyday work. In our School of Family Medicine, we thought that additional training was necessary. This was the key objective of our task-if telemedicine and telehealth are presented to a critical mass of doctors as yet another tool that will make their day-to-day work easier, the "chain reaction" of adopting and applying telemedicine and telehealth would not be stopped. Discussion: To further study this objective, we started with a pilot project with a course in telemedicine and telehealth for future family medicine specialists. Telepsychiatry and teledermatology were the first modules to be taught. In addition, telehealth care equipment was also presented to participants. Conclusion: Participants' reactions were very positive.

Gene polymorphisms of 22 cytokines in Macedonian children with atopic dermatitis.

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common chronically relapsing skin disease associated with abnormal cytokine production, and activation of T-helper 2 cells. The aim if this study was to determine whether cytokine gene polymorphisms might influence the development of AD. Single nucleotide polymorphisms in the genes for I-L1alpha, IL-1beta, IL-1R, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, IL-12, TGF beta, TNF and IFNgamma were investigated by PCR and sequence specific primers in Macedonian patients with AD (67 children, age of 6 months to 5 years) and 301 normal unrelated individuals. Susceptible cytokine polymorphisms for AD for eleven genotypes (IL-4 -33/T:T IL-4 -1098/G:G, TGFbeta cdn25C:G, IL-4 -1098/T:T, IL-1alpha -889/C:T, IL-2 +166/T:T, IL-1beta -511/C:T, IL-12 -1188/C:T, IL-10 -1082/A:G, IL-1beta +3962/C:T, IFNgamma +874/A:T), five diplotypes, six haplotypes, and for alleles were found. Protective cytokine polymorphisms for AD for seven cytokine genotypes (IL-4 -1098/G:T, TGFbeta cdn25/G:G, IL-4 -33/C:C, IL-1alpha -889/C:C, IFNgamma +874/A:A, IL-10 -1082/A:A, IL-1beta -511/C:C), one cytokine diplotypes, two cytokine haplotypes, and four cytokine alleles were also found. We concluded that several cytokine polymorphisms are protective, or susceptible associated with AD in population of Macedonians.