Why are some diseases called syndromes?

Question

Why are some diseases called syndromes?

Answer 1

Marie has a good answer, but there's also this: a syndrome is often described when a collection of symptoms appear without an obvious reason to tie them together. Doctors will discover a group of people who have the same, or nearly the same, list of symptoms together, but there's nothing that obviously ties them together. It's called a syndrome. Later, as there's a better understanding of the syndrome, it may turn out that there's a unifying etiology, one thing that ties it all together, and makes the complex make sense. Then it can become a disease, but often the "syndrome" monicker has become well enough established that it keeps being called a syndrome.

Answer 2

Typically, we tend to use the word 'syndrome' to describe something that has a constellation or collection of symptoms, not all of which may be present in any particular patient, or for a condition that can result a number of different pathologies.  The etymology of the word is indicative of that; it literally means "a running together" or a concurrence of symptoms.  The implication is that this is an entity that can affect more than one system.

For example, we don't talk about 'diabetes syndrome' because diabetes is a specific disease process, but we do talk about the 'metabolic syndrome', which includes not only high blood sugar but also high triglycerides, high blood pressure and low LDL ("good cholesterol").

Answer 3

yeah really. pcos is referred to as a syndrome but its a life long disease. its sometimes called pcod but commonly called pcos.