Norethindrone acetate offers a cost-effective and relatively mild alternative for treating symptomatic endometriosis. Patients undergoing treatment with norethindrone acetate experience relief from dysmenorrhea and noncyclic pelvic pain^[1].

As a standalone treatment, norethindrone acetate is well-tolerated and effective in managing pain and bleeding across all stages of endometriosis. It shows improved bleeding scores post-treatment regardless of previous hormonal regimens, and pain scores also improve in all patients except for those who were previously treated with GnRH-agonist plus add-back therapy^[2].

Experimentally, norethindrone acetate demonstrates low acute toxicity in animals, correlating with the minimal toxicity observed in humans. Even when administered to rodents at several multiples of the human dosage, it does not cause treatment-related mortality, hematological, behavioral changes, or organ pathology^[3].

Furthermore, norethindrone acetate administration in rats leads to significant and proportional reductions in plasma concentrations of triglycerides, cholesterol, and phospholipids in lipoproteins of density <1.006, particularly in those fed a high carbohydrate diet. At a concentration of 0.1 mM, it also significantly inhibits the incorporation of both palmitate and glycerol into triglycerides in isolated hepatocytes from fed rats^[4].