Generic name:sirolimus [ sih-RO-lim-us ]
Drug classes:MTOR inhibitors, Selective immunosuppressants
What is 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.
Warnings
You should not use Rapamune if you have ever had a lung transplant or liver transplant.
Rapamune may cause your body to overproduce white blood cells. This can lead to cancer, severe brain infection causing disability or death, or a viral infection causing kidney transplant failure.
Call your doctor right away if you have: fever, flu symptoms, burning when you urinate, a new skin lesion, any change in your mental state, decreased vision, weakness on one side of your body, problems with speech or walking, or pain around your transplant.
Before taking this medicine
You should not use Rapamune if you a...
