• to help patients gain weight after a severe illness, injury, or continuing infection. They also areused when patients fail to gain or maintain normal weight because ofunexplained medical reasons.
• to treat certain types of anemia.
• to treat certain kinds of breast cancer in some women.
• to treat hereditary angioedema, which causes swelling of the face, arms, legs, throat, windpipe, bowels, or sexual organs.

Anabolic steroids are synthetic derivatives of testosterone. Certainclinical effects and adverse reactions demonstrate the androgenicproperties of this class of drugs. Complete dissociation of anabolicand androgenic effects has not been achieved. The actions of anabolicsteroids are therefore similar to those of male sex hormones with thepossibility of causing serious disturbances of growth and sexualdevelopment if given to young children. Anabolic steroids suppress thegonadotropic functions of the pituitary and may exert a direct effectupon the testis.

Anabolic steroids have been reported to increase low-densitylipoproteins and decrease high-density lipoproteins. These changesrevert to normal on discontinuation of treatment.