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Atovaquone
Atovaquone (alternative spelling: atavaquone) is a chemical compound that belongs to the class of naphthalenes. Atovaquone is a hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone, an analog of ubiquinone, with antipneumocystic activity. Its average wholesale price is about $2.13 per standard 250 mg. tablet.[1] It is also manufactured in the US in the liquid form, or oral suspension, under the brand name Mepron.[2] Atovaquone is a medication used to treat or prevent:
Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX, Bactrim) is generally considered first line therapy for PCP or toxoplasmosis. However, atovaquone may be used in patients who cannot tolerate, or are allergic to, TMP-SMX. In addition, atovaquone has the advantage of not causing myelosuppression, which is an important issue in patients who have undergone bone marrow transplantation. Additional recommended knowledge
MalariaAtovaquone is only available as a fixed preparation with proguanil that has been commercially available from GlaxoSmithKline since 2000 as Malarone® (sometimes abbreviated A+P). It can be used both to treat and to prevent malaria. A "standard" tablet of Malarone contains 100 mg of proguanil hydrochloride and 250 mg of atovaquone. A "pediatric" tablet of Malarone contains 25 mg of proguanil hydrochloride and 62.5 mg of atovaquone. TreatmentThe adult treatment dose is four "standard" tablets once a day for three days. In children, the drug is prescribed by body weight:
Malarone is not licensed for use in children weighing 10 kg or less. The "pediatric" tablets are not used in malaria treatment. The advice of a specialist should always be sought when starting malaria treatment. Malarone should not be used to treat severe malaria, when an injectable drug (quinine or artesunate in the UK; quinidine in the US) should be used instead. PreventionMedical advice should always be taken before choosing a drug for malaria prevention. Because some strains of malaria are resistant, Malarone is not effective for malaria prevention in all parts of the world. It must be taken with a fatty meal or at least some milk to be absorbed adequately. The adult dose is one "standard" tablet daily starting one or two days before traveling into a malaria-endemic area, and continuing throughout the stay and then for another 7 days after returning from the malarious area. The child dose is prescribed according to body weight:
The duration of treatment is the same as for adults. ResistanceProguanil acts as a mitochondrial sensitiser and synergizes with atovaquone; also, there is a high natural frequency of cytochrome b mutants which leads to a high failure rate if atovaquone is used on its own to treat malaria. Specific mutations (Y268S, Y268C) have been shown to confer resistance in vivo,[4][5][6] but there are other mechanisms of resistance that remain unknown.[7] References
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Atovaquone". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia. |