Syndrome

A syndrome is a set of medical signs and symptoms that are correlated with each other and, often, with a particular disease or disorder.

The word derives from the Greek σύνδρομον, mean "concurrence".

In some instances, a syndrome is so closely linked with a pathogenesis or cause that the words syndrome, disease, and disorder end up being used interchangeably for them. This is especially true of inherited syndromes. For example, Down syndrome, Wolf–Hirschhorn syndrome, and Andersen syndrome are disorders with known pathogeneses, so each is more than just a set of signs and symptoms, despite the syndrome nomenclature.

In other instances, a syndrome is not specific to only one disease. For example, toxic shock syndrome can be caused by various toxins; premotor syndrome can be caused by various brain lesions, and premenstrual syndrome is not a disease but simply a set of symptoms.

If an underlying genetic cause is not suspected but known, a condition may be referred to as a genetic association (often just "association" in context). By definition, an association indicates that the collection of signs and symptoms occurs in combination more frequently than would be likely by chance alone.

Syndromes are often named after the physician or group of physicians that discovered them or initially described the full clinical picture. Such eponymous syndrome names are examples of medical eponyms. Recently, there has been a shift towards naming conditions descriptively (by symptoms or underlying cause) rather than eponymously, but the eponymous syndrome names often persist in common usage.

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