Serum Sickness

Excerpt

Serum sickness is an immune-complex-mediated hypersensitivity reaction that classically presents with fever, rash, polyarthritis or polyarthralgias. It was first recognized as an entity in the early 1900s in patients who had received heterologous antisera, which was historically used to treat infectious diseases. The symptoms typically occur one to two weeks after exposure to an offending agent and resolve within several weeks of discontinuation. It is a self-limited disease process with an excellent prognosis.