| Endometriosis is a common gynecological disorder affecting women of reproductive age. The pathogenesis remains enigmatic. Retrograde menstruation and transplantation theory is the most widely accepted explanation for endometriosis. However retrograde menstruation, occurs in high percentage of women , but a much lower prevalence for endometriosis, suggests that other factors besides retrograde (immunologic changes, genetic factors and endocrine factors) may determine the susceptibility to develop endometriosis.Previous basic studies on the pathogenesis with greater focus on peritoneal microenvironment suggested, that alteration of local regulatory factors such as immunity, endocrine and cytokine in the peritoneal cavity, which interfered with the peritoneal microenvironment, was related to the occurrence of endometriosis. In recent years, extensive attention was paid to its features and roles of primary endometriotic lesions in the pathogenesis of endometri os i s.It is difficult to obtain endometriotic lesions directly from patients, which has partly hindered the advancement ofunderstanding the disorder. Recently, it has been extablizlied that rats as a good animal model can be used for study of drugs, useful in the treatment of endometriosis.The formation and progress of endometriosis is associated with abnormal immune and inflammatory responses in the peritoneal cavity of these patients. Immunological factors play a major role in the pathogenesis of endometr iosi s. IL~6, a multifunctional cytokine in a complex network of cytokines, which can be produced by and has effects on many types of cells, has broad effects in many biological events, Previous studies have demonstrated that IL-6 was involved in the onset of endometriosis.Endometriosis is a hormone -related disease and the endometrium contains a plenty of progesterone receptor (PR) and estrogen receptor (ER). With the development in molecular biology, PR and ER were found to contribute to forming and progressing the endometriosis.Danazol (17-a ethisterone), a derivative of isoxazole, is an effective drug for the treatment of endometriosi s. It has the androgenic effects and tends to suppress the output of pituitary gonadotrophins resulting in lowering of ovarian sex hormone production, which consequently causes atrophy of lesions. Recent works has revealed that immunologic regulation of danazol may be beneficial in the treatment of endometriosis.Based on the understanding of endometriosis at the present time: 1. there is no observation on the state of ectopic endometrium in the whole course of this illness and stability of the rat model, although rat model was considered as the better experimental models and was established successfully.2. Experimental studies have demonstrated that IL-6 correlates well with endometriosis and affects the growth of ectopic endometrium. But these data were acquired through serum, peritoneal fluid and the level of IL-6 produced by macrophage in patients, no detailed description of change of IL-6 in ectopic endometrium was found, especially of relation of alteration of IL-6 level in ectopic endometrium with the progress of endometriosis during the whole process of endometriosis. 3. furthermore, present researches have showed that the levels of ER and PR in ectopic endometrium were lower than those in eutopic endometrium. However, there was only a few reports about the differences and significance of the levels of ER and PR in ectopic tissue. 4. In spite of curative effect of Danazol, more questions need to be answered such as: How does the treatment duration affect the lesions? How does Danazol affect the expression of IL-6 mRNA level in ectopic endometrium?Based on rat experimental model using modern techniques of molecular biology the aims of our investigations are to explore the state and morphologic change of implants, the alterations of IL-6,ER and PR mRNA in ectopic endometrium and their association with pathogenesis of endometriosis , to explore the effect of Danazol on expre... |
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