Rapamune

Uses of Rapamune

Rapamune weakens your body’s immune system, to help keep it from “rejecting” a transplanted organ such as a kidney. Organ rejection happens when the immune system treats the new organ as an invader and attacks it.

Rapamune is a prescription medicine used to prevent rejection (anti-rejection medicine) in people 13 years of age and older who have received a kidney transplant. Rejection is when your body’s immune system recognizes the new organ as a “foreign” threat and attacks it. Rapamune is used with other medicines called cyclosporine (Gengraf, Neoral, Sandimmune), and corticosteroids.

Rapamune is also given without other medicines to treat a rare lung disorder called lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM). LAM affects predominantly women of childbearing age. This disorder happens mostly in women and causes lung tumors that are not cancerous but can affect breathing.

Precautions and Warnings

You should not use Rapamune if you are allergic to sirolimus, or if you have ever had a lung transplant or liver transplant.

Talk with your doctor about the risks and benefits of using this medicine. Rapamune can affect your immune system, and may cause overproduction of certain white blood cells. This can lead to cancer, severe brain infection causing disability or death, or a viral infection causing kidney transplant failure.

To make sure Rapamune is safe for you, tell your doctor if you have ever had:

• high cholesterol or triglycerides;
• cytomegalovirus (CMV);
• liver disease; or
• a family history of skin cancer (melanoma).

Do not use Rapamune if you are pregnant. Use effective birth control to prevent pregnancy while you are taking this medicine, and for at least 12 weeks after your last dose.

You should not breast-feed while using this medicine.

Rapamune should not be given to a child younger than 13 years old.

Dosage

The usual starting dose is 6 mg after transplantation and then 2 mg once daily.

Always take the medicine exactly as your doctor tells you. How much to take your doctor will decide exactly what dose of Rapamune
you must take and how often to take it.

Follow your doctor’s instructions exactly and never change the dose yourself. Do not stop taking your medicine unless your doctor tells you to.

Side Effects

Common  side effects:

• fever, cold symptoms such as stuffy nose, sneezing, sore throat;
• mouth sores;
• nausea, stomach pain, diarrhea;
• headache, muscle aches;
• chest pain;
• dizziness; or
• acne.