Avas Dosage/Direction for Use

The patient should be placed on a standard cholesterol lowering diet before receiving Avas and should continue on this diet during treatment.
Hypercholesterolaemia (Heterozygous Familial and Nonfamilial) and Mixed Dyslipidaemia (Frederickson Type IIa and IIb): Recommended Starting Dose: 10 mg daily. The dosage range is 10-80 mg once daily. Avas can be administered as a single dose at any time of the day with or without food. Therapy should be individualized according to goal of therapy and response. After initiation and/or upon titration of Avas, lipid levels should be analyzed within 2-4 weeks and dosage adjusted accordingly. Since the goal of treatment is to lower LDL-C, the LDL-C should be used to initiate and assess treatment response. Only if LDL-C levels are not available, should total-C be used to monitor therapy.
Homozygous Familial Hypercholesterolaemia: 10-80 mg daily. Avas should be used as an adjunct to other lipid-lowering treatments (eg, LDL apheresis) in these patients or if such treatments are unavailable.
Patients with Renal Insufficiency: Renal disease has no influence on the plasma concentrations or lipid effects of Avas; thus, no adjustment of dose is required. Haemodialysis is not expected to significantly enhance the clearance of Avas since the drug is extensively bound to plasma proteins.
Patients with Hepatic Dysfunction: In patients with moderate to severe hepatic dysfunction, the therapeutic response of Avas is unaffected but exposure to the drug is greatly increased. C_max increases by approximately 16-fold and AUC _(0-24) by approximately 11-fold. Therefore, caution should be exercised in patients who consume substantial quantities of alcohol and/or have a history of liver disease.