ETRAVIRINE

Please see Precautions section.

You should check with your doctor immediately if any of these side effects occur when taking etravirine:

More common

• Rash

Less common

• Blurred vision
• burning, numbness, tingling, or painful sensations
• dizziness
• headache
• nervousness
• pounding in the ears
• slow or fast heartbeat
• unsteadiness or awkwardness
• weakness in the arms, hands, legs, or feet

Some of the side effects that can occur with etravirine may not need medical attention:

More common

• Nausea

Less common

• Stomach pain
• vomiting

Precautions

General:

Use in combination with other active antiretroviral agents will increase the likelihood of treatment response. Patients who have experienced virologic failure on an NNRTI-containing regimen should not use etravirine in combination with only nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors.

• Severe Skin and Hypersensitivity Reaction: Severe skin reactions and hypersensitivity reactions or allergic reactions (characterized by rash, constitutional findings, and sometimes organ dysfunction, including liver failure) have also been reported. Rash most commonly occurred within 6 weeks of treatment initiation. If signs or symptoms of skin reactions or hypersensitivity reactions develop, etravirine therapy should be discontinued at once.
• Immune reconstitution: This syndrome has occurred during combination antiretroviral therapy. Patients responding to therapy may develop an inflammatory response to indolent or residual opportunistic infections and require evaluation and treatment.
• Cross-resistance: The potential for HIV cross-resistance among nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI) exists but has not been fully explored. Selection of antiretroviral agents for a patient’s medication regimen should be done carefully.

Pregnancy Risk: Category B.  No proven risk in humans

Breastfeeding: It is not known whether etravirine is secreted in human milk. Because of both the potential for HIV transmission and the potential for adverse reactions in nursing infants, mothers should be instructed not to breastfeed if they are receiving etravirine.

Interactions

• Some products that may interact with this drug include: certain anti-seizure medicines (carbamazepine, phenobarbital, phenytoin), other HIV NNRTIs (e.g., efavirenz, nevirapine, delavirdine), certain HIV protease inhibitors (atazanavir, fosamprenavir, tipranavir/ritonavir), rifampin, rifapentine, St John’s wort.
• Other medications can affect the removal of etravirine from your body, which may affect how etravirine works. Examples include rifabutin, azole antifungals (such as itraconazole), macrolide antibiotics (such as erythromycin, clarithromycin), among others.
• This drug can speed up or slow down the removal of other drugs from your body by affecting certain liver enzymes. These affected drugs include clopidogrel, medications for heart rhythm (e.g., amiodarone, disopyramide, quinidine), “blood thinners” (e.g., warfarin), certain “statin” cholesterol medications (atorvastatin, fluvastatin, lovastatin, simvastatin), organ transplant drugs (e.g., cyclosporine, tacrolimus), drugs to treat erectile dysfunction-ED or pulmonary hypertension (e.g., sildenafil, tadalafil), among others.

Overdose

If overdose is suspected, contact a poison control center or emergency room immediately.

Notes

Do not share this medication with others.

Laboratory and/or medical tests (e.g., viral load, T-cell counts) should be performed periodically to monitor your progress or check for side effects. Consult your doctor for more details.

Keep all medical and laboratory appointments.

Missed Dose

If you miss a dose and it is within 6 hours of the time you usually take the dose, take it after a meal as soon as you remember. If it is more than 6 hours from the time you usually take the dose, skip the missed dose and resume your usual dosing schedule. Do not double the dose to catch up.

Storage

Store at room temperature at 77 degrees F (25 degrees C) away from light and moisture. Brief storage between 59-86 degrees F (15-30 degrees C) is permitted. Store this drug in its original bottle, and keep the bottle tightly closed. Each bottle should contain small pouches of a substance (desiccant) that help keep moisture in the air from damaging the drug. Do not remove desiccant pouches from bottle. Do not store in the bathroom. Keep all medicines away from children and pets.

Do not flush medications down the toilet or pour them into a drain unless instructed to do so. Properly discard this product when it is expired or no longer needed. Consult your pharmacist or local waste disposal company for more details about how to safely discard your product.

Brands

There are no brands containing this molecule.