cytokine release syndrome

noun

plural cytokine release syndromes

: a sometimes life-threatening, systemic inflammatory condition that results from an aggressive immune response involving over-activation of immune cells (such as T cells in response to immunotherapy or infection) which release excessive cytokines in the body in an uncontrolled fashion and that is characterized especially by fever, fatigue, headache, rash, or muscle or joint pain and may progress to more serious symptoms including hypotension, increased heart rate, capillary leakage, edema, hypoxia, multiple organ failure, and sometimes death : the syndrome resulting from a cytokine storm : cytokine storm syndrome

Patients taking part in the trial have virus-induced cytokine release syndrome, an inflammatory illness that can cause organ failure.

—Kate Andrews

… but the engineered cell therapies can cause a dangerous immune reaction called cytokine release syndrome …

—Arlene Weintraub

—abbreviation CRS

Examples of cytokine release syndrome in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Nearly all patients had only low grade cytokine release syndrome; one patient experienced neurotoxicity. —Angus Chen Reprints, STAT, 20 Apr. 2023

Half of patients experienced mild to moderate cytokine release syndrome and 14% percent experienced mild to moderate neurotoxicity. —William A. Haseltine, Forbes, 23 Feb. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1991, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

cytokine release syndrome

noun

: a sometimes life-threatening, systemic inflammatory condition that results from an aggressive immune response involving over-activation of immune cells (as T cells in response to immunotherapy or infection) which release excessive cytokines in the body in an uncontrolled fashion and that is characterized especially by fever, fatigue, headache, rash, or muscle or joint pain and may progress to more serious symptoms including hypotension, increased heart rate, capillary leakage, edema, hypoxia, multiple organ failure, and sometimes death : the syndrome resulting from a cytokine storm : cytokine storm syndrome

Medical experts working with COVID-19 patients have observed that, in some serious and fatal cases, patients may be harmed even more by cytokine release syndrome—when the body's immune system overreacts to a threat and ends up damaging the body through the inflammatory response.

—Bridget Balch, Richmond (Virginia) Times Dispatch

Cytokine release syndrome resembles sepsis and is also seen with high-dose IL-2. With supportive care, even severe renal failure, coma, and respiratory failure are completely reversed usually.

—Jennifer Kelly Shepphird, Frontline Medical News

—abbreviation CRS