Serum ferritin during infection. A longitudinal study in renal transplant patients

Abstract

In order to follow the dynamics in the reaction of iron kinetic variables to acute infection, 8 renal transplantation patients were followed with test samples every second or third day for about two months. It was found that they just as previously shown in otherwise healthy subjects, responded to acute infection with a rise in serum ferritin levels, sometimes to very high values. In most cases the ferritin elevation started within two days after the onset of fever. The peak was reached within a week, except when very high values were obtained. The fall in serum ferritin after recovery from infection was much faster than in previously investigated groups of patients: the plasma half disappearance time for ferritin in one case was but 1.5 days. Transferrin did not change in response to infection. The expected fall in serum iron during infection was often absent and sometimes obscured by unexpected, sharp peaks in serum iron, which bore a temporal relationship to episodes of transplant rejection in 7 of 12 cases.