raltegravir potassium: prescribing and clinical use
Focused clinical detail for use alongside current product information, local policy and patient-specific assessment.
raltegravir potassium: clinical details
Contraindications and cautions
- Hypersensitivity to raltegravir or any product excipient.
Clinical pharmacology
Raltegravir inhibits HIV-1 integrase strand transfer. It is mainly cleared through UGT1A1-mediated glucuronidation and has little clinically relevant CYP-mediated interaction potential.
Formulation and product differences
- Film-coated tablets must be swallowed whole.
- Chewable tablets and oral-suspension granules have higher bioavailability than conventional film-coated tablets and are not directly interchangeable.
- Oral-suspension granules are mixed with water using the supplied equipment; the prepared product must be used promptly and any remainder discarded.
- Chewable tablets contain aspartame, fructose, sorbitol and sucrose.
raltegravir potassium preparations and strengths
Chewable tablet
Route: Oral
Strengths: 25 mg, 100 mg
Oral suspension
Route: Oral
Strengths: 100 mg
Tablet
Route: Oral
Strengths: 400 mg, 600 mg
raltegravir potassium interactions
Check prescription medicines, non-prescription products and supplements with the HIV pharmacist, as interaction advice can differ between raltegravir formulations.
Aluminium-, magnesium- or calcium-containing antacids
These can reduce absorption of the selected film-coated product; co-administration is not recommended.
Rifampicin and other strong enzyme inducers, such as phenytoin or phenobarbital
These may lower raltegravir exposure and risk loss of antiviral activity; specialist review is required.
Atazanavir
It can raise raltegravir concentrations; co-administration with the selected film-coated product is not recommended.
Sources
These sources were used to prepare and review this medicine page.
Prepared and reviewed by the iatroX editorial team.