الفهرس 
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Abstract
Several published studies investigated iron and zinc status in children with FSs, but the results have been conflicting. Therefore, it was the purpose of the present work to study iron and zinc status in children with simple FSs, and to find out whether iron or zinc deficiencies could be potential risk factors of this type of seizures.
The study included 30 children aged 6 months to 5 years, presenting to the Emergency Room at Alexandria University Children’s Hospital(El-Shatby) with simple FSs, as well as 30 control children from the same setting presenting with short febrile illness, but without seizures.
All enrolled children were subjected to history taking, physical examination, and determination of hemoglobin level, RBC indices, serum ferritin, serum iron, total iron binding capacity and serum zinc level.
The following results were obtained:
1. The mean age of children with FSs was 22.4±11.18months.
2. The majority (60%) of children with FSs were males.
3. The great majority of children with FSs, were born at term to consanguineous parents and had positive family history of FSs which was of statistically significant value.
4. There were no statistically significant differences between cases of FSs and controls in gender, mean age, residence. However, 50% of cases and none of controls has a previous history of FSs.
5. The mean temperature at presentation in cases with FSs (39.50±0.39oC) was significantly higher than that of controls (38.69 ± 0.56 oC).
6. The most common cause of fever was infection (90% of cases and 100% of controls), followed by vaccination (10% of cases and none of controls).
7. The majority of cases (93.3%) and controls (80%) were anemic.
8. There were a significant differences between cases and controls in mean hemoglobin level (9.91 ± 0.93 g/dL and 10.61 ± 1.05 g/dL, respectively) and mean RDW (14.50±1.64 and 13.44±0.55, respectively).
9. There were no significant differences between cases and controls in MCV, MCH, MCHC.
10. Serum ferritin was below the cutoff point for iron deficiency during infection in 40% of cases and 26.6% of controls. Yet with no statistically significant difference.
11. The mean serum iron in cases was (0.20±0.09 µg/dL) with a statistically significant difference than that in the control group.
12. The mean values of TIBC was (4.05±0.41) with a statistically significant difference between both groups.
13. Iron deficiency anemia was found in 70% of cases and 40% of controls with no statistically significant difference.
14. Low serum zinc level was found in 66.7% of cases and 23.3% in controls and was statistically significant.
from these results it was concluded that:
1. Anemia and iron deficiency are prevalent in our community among children below 5 years.
2. Iron deficiency and iron deficiency anemia could be considered risk factors for FSs.
3. Zinc deficiency is probably a risk factor for FSs.