Question

1. Describe how endometriosis develops and how hormone drugs are used to treat it.

2. Describe two different actions of drugs that result in abortion of a fetus.

Answer 1

1.Endometriosis can be defined as a disorder in which the tissue endometrium that normally lines the inside of your uterus grows outside the uterus. Endometriosis most commonly involves the ovaries, fallopian tubes and the tissue lining the pelvis.

Development of endometriosis can be described in the following way:

• Every month, a woman's ovaries produce hormones that tell the cells lining the uterus to swell and get thicker. The uterus then sheds these cells along with blood and tissue through vaginavduring menstruation.
• In endometriosis the lining ofothe uterus breaks down and because of retrograde flow of menstrual blood tgrough fallopian tubes starts getting deposited into other areas of the body such as ovaries, pelvic region etc.
• These growths or linings now stay inside the body and do not get shed during menstruation but react to hormonal changes and get thicker accordingly.
• All of these leads to the symptoms of this disorder such as pain.

Oral contraceptives, or birth control pills are hormone drugs used to treat the symptoms of this disorder.In general, the therapy contains two hormones-estrogen and progestin, a progesterone-like hormone to treat the symptoms.

2. Abortion can be defined as the premature exit of the products of conception (the fetus, fetal membranes, and placenta) from the uterus.A medical abortion is generally done within 64 days of gestation. The two different actions of drugs that result in abortion of a fetus is as follows:

• Mifepristone (Mifeprex):It is oftenothe drug of choice. It acts by countering the effect of progesterone, a hormone necessary for pregnancy thus terminating the pregnancy.
• Other class of drugs such as the prostaglandin work by severe contraction of the uterus which in turn leads to explosion of the fetus