Step 1: Recognise the eye finding - a brownish ring at the corneal margin from copper laid down in Descemet's membrane is the Kayser-Fleischer ring. Step 2: It points to Wilson's disease, where defective ATP7B copper transport leads to copper overload. Step 3: The single most useful listed laboratory marker is a low serum ceruloplasmin, since most circulating copper normally travels bound to this protein; its level falls in Wilson's disease and forms part of the diagnostic criteria. Step 4: Total serum copper can be misleading, and genetic tests such as karyotyping or PCR are not the first-line confirmation here, so ceruloplasmin is the answer.\[\boxed{\text{Serum ceruloplasmin}}\]