Starez Dosage/Direction for Use

Administration: The patient should be placed on a standard cholesterol-lowering diet before receiving rosuvastatin and should continue on this diet during treatment.
Rosuvastatin is administered orally as a single dose at any time of day, with or without food.
Dosage: Primary Hypercholesterolemia and Mixed Dyslipidemia: The usual initial dosage of rosuvastatin in adults is 10 mg once daily given without regard to meals.
Initiation of therapy with 5 mg once daily may be considered for patients requiring less aggressive LDL-cholesterol reductions, patients who have predisposing factors for myopathy, or patients who are at risk of increased exposure to rosuvastatin.
For patients with marked hypercholesterolemia and aggressive lipid targets, an initial rosuvastatin dosage of 20 mg once daily may be considered.
Dosage may be increased as necessary to a maximum recommended dosage of 40 mg daily. The 40-mg daily dosage of rosuvastatin should be reserved for those patients who have not achieved their LDL-cholesterol goal with the 20-mg daily dosage.
Asian Patients: The manufacturer recommends an initial rosuvastatin dosage of 5 mg once daily in Asian patients.
Renal Impairment: The usual dose range applies in patients with mild to moderate renal impairment. The use of rosuvastatin in patients with severe renal impairment is contraindicated.
Patients with pre-disposing factors to myopathy: The recommended start dose is 5 mg in patients with pre-disposing factors to myopathy.
Concomitant therapy: Rosuvastatin is a substrate of various transporter proteins (e.g. OATP1B1 and BCRP). The risk of myopathy (including rhabdomyolysis) is increased when rosuvastatin is administered concomitantly with certain medicinal products that may increase the plasma concentration of rosuvastatin due to interactions with these transporter proteins (e.g. certain protease inhibitors including combinations of ritonavir with atazanavir, lopinavir, and/or tipanavir). Whenever possible, alternative medications should be considered, and if necessary, consider temporarily discontinuing Starez 10 mg therapy. In situations where co-administration of these medicinal products with rosuvastatin is unavoidable, the benefit and the risk of concurent treatment and rosuvastatin dosing adjustments should be carefully considered.