Lamivudin (Cipla Ltd)

Lamivudine product description

Lamivudine an antiviral agent, a nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor, designed by Cipla ltd. Penetrating into cells, it is metabolized to 5-triphosphate, which suppresses the reverse transcriptase of HIV, which leads to an elimination of viral replication.

The pharmaceutical is prescribed during the recovery period after myocardial infarction, with the prevention of angina attacks.

Lamivudine safety information

Lamivudine is not desirable to take during pregnancy. The lactating women who take lamivudine should discontinue breastfeeding. It is forbidden to take this pharmaceutical product to people with hypersensitivity to lamivudine or other components of the remedy; with lactose sensitivity, lactase dearth, glucose-galactose malabsorption; with impaired renal function with creatinine clearance less than 30 ml/min.

Children under 3 years old, children weighing less than 14 kg - a significant contraindication. Lamivudine must be carefully assigned to people with the following maladies: renal failure with creatinine clearance from 30 ml/min to 50 ml/min, peripheral neuropathy (including in the history), pancreatitis (including in the anamnesis).

To prescribe lamivudine as a monotherapy is not recommended.

All the patients must be informed that the treating procedure with a help of antiretroviral pharmaceuticals, including lamivudine, does not exclude the risk of HIV transmission to other people withing sexual intercourse or blood transfusion. Therefore, all the people should take appropriate precautions.

In patients with impaired function of moderate and severe severity, lamivudine concentration in the blood plasma has grown due to a reduction in the clearance of lamivudine, therefore the adjustment of the dosage is required.

There was reported the high incidence of virological response and early resistance because of combining of lamivudine with tenofovir with dizoproxil fumarate and abacavir, as well as with tenofovir dizoproxil fumarate and didanosine in the dosing regimen once a day.

Lamivudine side effects

Among the unexpected side reactions: increasing the concentration of lactic acid in the serum; infrequently, hypertriglyceridemia, hypercholesterolemia, insulin resistance, a headache, insomnia, retching, queasiness, upper abdominal pain, diarrhea, rash, alopecia, arthralgia, muscle disorders, cough, nasal symptoms, fatigue, malaise, fever.

People receiving lamivudine or other antiretroviral medical remedies may gain opportunistic infections or other complications of HIV infection, so all the ill people must be closely controlled by a physician experienced in the medical care of patients with HIV-associated maladies.

Some ill people consuming lamivudine reported the rare manifestation of pancreatitis. However, it is not established whether this complication has been resulted by the pharmaceutical product or the underlying disease - HIV infection. The reception of this pharmaceutical must be quitted right away if the clinical symptoms or laboratory evidence of pancreatitis are detected (such as abdominal pain, queasiness, retching, or enlarged biochemical markers). It is necessary to quit the intake of the remedy prior the diagnosis of pancreatitis is excluded.

There have been reports of the detection in patients (predominantly in women) of lactic acidosis, severe hepatomegaly with steatosis, including fatal outcome due to antiretroviral therapy with nucleoside analogs in the form of separate pharmaceutical products, including lamivudine and its combinations.