Asenapine for schizophrenia and bipolar I disorder
Receptor binding profile and sublingual delivery distinguish asenapine from other atypical antipsychotics
Because asenapine is associated with QT prolongation, do not administer it with other QT-prolonging agents, such as procainamide, sotalol, quinidine, erythromycin, clarithromycin, methadone, or other antipsychotics.
Dosing
Asenapine is manufactured as 5-mg and 10-mg sublingual tablets. Advise patients to avoid eating or drinking for 10 minutes after taking asenapine.
The recommended starting and target dosage for patients with schizophrenia is 5 mg twice daily. The recommended starting dosage for patients with an acute mixed or manic episode of bipolar I disorder is 10 mg twice daily; however, this can be reduced to 5 mg twice daily if the patient experiences intolerable side effects.
Related resource
- Asenapine (Saphris) prescribing information. www.spfiles.com/pisaphrisv1.pdf.
Drug brand names
- Asenapine • Saphris
- Clarithromycin • Biaxin
- Clozapine • Clozaril
- Erythromycin • ERY-C, Ery-Tab
- Fluoxetine • Prozac
- Fluvoxamine • Luvox
- Haloperidol • Haldol
- Methadone • Dolophine, Methadose
- Olanzapine • Zyprexa
- Paroxetine • Paxil
- Procainamide • Procanbid
- Quinidine • Quinidine
- Risperidone • Risperdal
- Sotalol • Betapace, Sorine
Disclosures
Dr. Lincoln reports no financial relationship with any company whose products are mentioned in this article, or with manufacturers of competing products.
Dr. Preskorn receives grant/research support from AstraZeneca, Biovail, Boehringer-Ingleheim, Cyberonics, Eli Lilly and Company, EnVivo, GlaxoSmithKline, UNC Chapel Hill, and Wyeth. He is a consultant to Allergan, Covidien, Eli Lilly and Company, Evotec, Lundbeck/Takeda, Transcept, and Wyeth.
