A synthetic steroid medication used to reduce inflammation and suppress the immune system in treating various diseases and conditions.
From pred- (a chemical prefix) + -nisone (suffix indicating a steroid compound), developed in pharmaceutical chemistry in the 1950s as a synthetic derivative of cortisone.
Prednisone became a medical breakthrough partly by accident—chemists were trying to improve upon cortisone when they created this more powerful version, and it revolutionized treatment for everything from asthma to lupus by giving doctors a tool that actually works without requiring constant cortisone injections.
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