Abstract

Background: Brucellosis is one of the most common zoonotic infection worldwide which can cause serious complications such as osteomyelitis, meningitis and severe depression if it's not treated successfully; according to the Official Department of Communicable Diseases/Ministry of Health in Jordan about 455 cases registered who were infected with Brucella during the year 2018.

55 years old married male retired policeman smoker not known to have previous chronic medical illnesses. Suddenly the patient started suffering from progressive drowsiness and intermittent sensing of rotation followed by excessive night sweating and loss of appetite; he consulted several doctors who Primary diagnosed him as iron deficiency anaemia and an oral iron therapy supplement was prescribed for him; others diagnosed him as Upper Respiratory Tract Infection and oral antibiotics were prescribed for him, but with no significant improvement happened; after he was being evaluated and investigated in an outpatient clinic by a family medicine specialist who surprisingly noted a high serum ferritin level which guided the physician to expect an underlying inflammatory process(Pulmonary Tuberculosis, Brucellosis, Typhoid fever and Major Depression as differential diagnosis) which in its order guided the physician to reach to the exact diagnosis, also the declining level of ferritin help him for following up and expecting the degree of successful treatment for brucellosis.

Conclusion: High serum ferritin level could be a useful guideline and director for diagnosing follow up and successful management of Brucellosis. This result encouraged me to think if there is a significant relationship between high serum ferritin and Brucella infection and if it can be used as a biomarker for diagnosing follow up and as a sensitive guideline for successful management for Brucella infection.

Keywords: High Serum Ferritin, Brucellosis.