The name syndrome combines two Greek roots to describe a condition gathering a group of signs and symptoms existing together in patients. It seems that Avicenna first used it in his 1025 publication “The Canon of Medicine”. In genetics, the use of the name syndrome generally assumes that the underlying cause of the disease is known. On the other hand, in medicine, syndrome refers to conditions both with a known and unknown cause.

Historically, associated signs and symptoms found to be of improbable correlation were eventually known to have an underlying cause responsible for all of them. Even after the cause is unraveled, the original word remains, sometimes with the name of the first describer, and this is probably the reason for the existence nowadays of syndromes with identified and unidentified causes.

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