Cladribine

Cladribine is a prescription medication used to treat hairy cell leukemia, a type of white blood cell cancer. Cladribine belongs to a group of drugs called purine analogs. These work by stopping or slowing the growth of cancer cells.

This medication is available in an injectable form to be given directly into a vein (IV) by a healthcare professional.

Common side effects include fever, infection, nausea, and tiredness.

Cladribine is a prescription medication used to treat hairy cell leukemia, a type of white blood cell cancer.

This medication may be prescribed for other uses. Ask your doctor or pharmacist for more information.

Cladribine may be found in some form under the following brand names:

• Leustatin

• Mavenclad

Common side effects include:

• fever
• infection
• fatigue
• nausea
• rash
• headache
• injection site reactions

This is not a complete list of this medication’s side effects. Ask your doctor or pharmacist for more information.

Tell your doctor if you have any side effect that bothers you or that does not go away.

Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to the FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.

Tell your doctor about all the medicines you take, including prescription and non-prescription medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. Especially tell your doctor if you take:

• aminoglycoside antibiotics such as amikacin (Amikin), gentamicin (Garamycin), or tobramycin (Tobi, Nebcin)
• amphotericin B (Amphotec, Fungizone)
• angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors such as benazepril (Lotensin), captopril (Capoten), enalapril (Vasotec), fosinopril (Monopril), lisinopril (Prinivil, Zestril), moexipril (Univasc), perindopril (Aceon), quinapril (Accupril), ramipril (Altace), and trandolapril (Mavik
• nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications such as diclofenac (Cataflam, Voltaren), naproxen (Aleve, Naprosyn), and sulindac (Clinoril)
• immunosuppressants such as azathioprine (Imuran), cyclosporine (Neoral, Sandimmune), methotrexate (Rheumatrex), sirolimus (Rapamune), and tacrolimus (Prograf)

This is not a complete list of cladribine drug interactions. Ask your doctor or pharmacist for more information.

Cladribine use can lead to serious side effects.

• Cladribine may cause a severe decrease in the number of all types of blood cells in your blood. This may cause certain symptoms and may increase the risk that you will develop a serious infection or bleeding. If you experience any of the following symptoms, call your doctor immediately: fever, sore throat, chills, or other signs of infection; unusual bleeding or bruising; black and tarry stools; red blood in stools; bloody vomit; or vomited material that looks like coffee grounds.
• Cladribine may cause severe nerve damage. Nerve damage may occur more than one month after cladribine injection is given. If you experience any of the following symptoms, call your doctor immediately: pain, burning, numbness, or tingling in the hands or feet; weakness in the arms or legs; or loss of ability to move your arms or legs.
• Keep all appointments with your doctor and the laboratory. Your doctor will order certain tests before, during, and after treatment to check your body's response to cladribine.

Do not take this medication if you are allergic to cladribine or to any of its ingredients.

Medications can interact with certain foods. In some cases, this may be harmful and your doctor may advise you to avoid certain foods. In the case of cladribine, there are no specific foods that you must exclude from your diet when receiving this medication.

Before taking cladribine,

• tell your doctor and pharmacist if you are allergic to cladribine, any other medications, or any of the ingredients in cladribine injection
• tell your doctor if you have or have ever had liver disease
• tell your doctor if you are pregnant, plan to become pregnant, or are breastfeeding. You should not become pregnant while you are receiving cladribine. If you become pregnant while receiving cladribine, call your doctor. Cladribine may harm the unborn baby.

Tell your doctor if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant.

The FDA categorizes medications based on safety for use during pregnancy. Five categories - A, B, C, D, and X, are used to classify the possible risks to an unborn baby when a medication is taken during pregnancy.

This medication falls into category D. In animal studies, pregnant animals were given this medication and had some babies born with problems. No well-controlled studies have been done in humans. Therefore, this medication may be used if the potential benefits to the mother outweigh the potential risks to the unborn child. Avoid pregnancy while prescribed cladribine.

Tell your doctor if you are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed.

It is not known if cladribine crosses into human milk. Because many medications can cross into human milk and because of the possibility for serious adverse reactions in nursing infants with use of this medication, a choice should be made whether to stop nursing or stop the use of this medication. Your doctor and you will decide if the benefits outweigh the risk of using cladribine.

This medication is available in an injectable form to be given directly into a vein (IV) by a healthcare professional.

This medication is available in an injectable form to be dosed by a healthcare professional.

The recommended dose of cladribine is 0.09 mg/kg to be infused into the vein over 24 hours. This is repeated daily for a total of 7 consecutive days.

If this medication is administered by a healthcare provider in a medical setting, it is unlikely that an overdose will occur. However, if an overdose is suspected, seek emergency medical attention.