Disease
Adverse effects of cytokines have been linked to many disease states and conditions ranging from major depression and Alzheimer's disease to cancer with levels either being elevated or changed. Over-secretion of cytokines can trigger a dangerous syndrome known as a cytokine storm; this may have been the cause of severe adverse events during a clinical trial of TGN1412. Cytokine storms also were the main cause of death in the 1918 "Spanish Flu" pandemic. Deaths were weighted more heavily towards people with healthy immune systems, due to its ability to produce stronger immune responses, like increasing cytokine levels. Another important example of cytokine storm is seen in acute pancreatitis. Cytokines are integral and implicated in all angles of the cascade resulting in the systemic inflammatory response syndrome and multi organ failure associated with this intra-abdominal catastrophe.
Read more about this topic: Cytokine
Famous quotes containing the word disease:
“‘Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.”
—Ben Jonson (c. 1572–1637)
“John F. Kennedy was the victim of the hate that was a part of our country. It is a disease that occupies the minds of the few but brings danger to the many.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Whoever grows angry amid troubles applies a drug worse than the disease and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)