Cancer Channel
Topics
Medications
Quicklinks
Related Channels
Drug Interactions With Pentostatin
Before you use pentostatin, let your healthcare provider know about all other medications, vitamins, and supplements you are taking. This is important because combining certain products, such as echinacea or certain vaccinations, with pentostatin can cause potentially dangerous drug interactions. Some of these problems may include serious side effects, a decreased effectiveness of the medications, or other complications.
Pentostatin (Nipent®) may interact with a few other medications. Some of the drugs that may react with pentostatin include but are not limited to:
- Amphotericin B (Abelcet®, AmBisome®, Amphotec®)
- Carmustine (BiCNU®)
- Certain immunosuppressant medications, such as:
- Denosumab (Prolia®)
- Leflunomide (Arava®)
- Natalizumab (Tysabri®)
- Pimecrolimus (Elidel®)
- Tacrolimus (Prograf®, Protopic®)
- Trastuzumab (Herceptin®)
- Clozapine (Clozaril®, FazaClo®)
- Cyclophosphamide (Cytoxan®)
- Echinacea
- Etoposide, etoposide phosphate (Etopophos®), and etoposide injection (Toposar®)
- Fludarabine (Fludara®)
- "Live" vaccinations, such as:
- Chickenpox vaccine (varicella vaccine)
- FluMist® (the nasal vaccine for influenza; the injected vaccine is not live)
- MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, rubella vaccine)
- Polio vaccine
- Rotavirus vaccine
- Smallpox vaccine
- Yellow fever vaccine
- BCG vaccine (used in some countries for tuberculosis)
- Nelarabine (Arranon®)
- Pegademase bovine (Adagen®)
- Roflumilast (Daliresp®)
- Sipuleucel-T (Provenge®).
Written by/reviewed by: Susan Lakey, PharmD, MPH, BCPP
Last reviewed by: Kristi Monson, PharmD