Source: Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (GB) Revision Year: 2019 Publisher: UCB Pharma Ltd, 208 Bath Road, Slough, Berkshire, SL1 3WE
Hypersensitivity to the active substance, to cetirizine, to hydroxyzine, to any other piperazine derivatives or to any of the other excipients listed in section 6.1.
Severe renal impairment at less than 10 ml/min creatinine clearance.
Precaution is recommended with concurrent intake of alcohol (see section 4.5).
Xyzal contains methyl parahydroxybenzoate and propyl parahydroxybenzoate which may cause allergic reactions (possibly delayed).
Caution should be taken in patients with epilepsy and patients at risk of convulsion as levocetirizine may cause seizure aggravation.
Xyzal contains maltitol liquid
Patients with rare hereditary problems of fructose intolerance should not take this medicine.
Caution should be taken in patients with predisposing factors of urinary retention (e.g. spinal cord lesion, prostatic hyperplasia) as levocetirizine may increase the risk of urinary retention.
Response to allergy skin tests are inhibited by antihistamines and a wash-out period (of 3 days) is required before performing them.
Pruritus may occur when levocetirizine is stopped even if those symptoms were not present before treatment initiation. The symptoms may resolve spontaneously. In some cases, the symptoms may be intense and may require treatment to be restarted. The symptoms should resolve when the treatment is restarted.
Even if some clinical data are available in children aged 6 months to 12 years (see sections 4.8, 5.1 and 5.2), these data are not sufficient to support the administration of levocetirizine to infants and toddlers aged less than 2 years.
No interaction studies have been performed with levocetirizine (including no studies with CYP3A4 inducers); studies with the racemate compound cetirizine demonstrated that there were no clinically relevant adverse interactions (with antipyrine, azithromycin, cimetidine, diazepam, erythromycin, glipizide, ketoconazole and pseudoephedrine). A small decrease in the clearance of cetirizine (16%) was observed in a multiple dose study with theophylline (400 mg once a day); while the disposition of theophylline was not altered by concomitant cetirizine administration.
In a multiple dose study of ritonavir (600 mg twice daily) and cetirizine (10 mg daily), the extent of exposure to cetirizine was increased by about 40% while the disposition of ritonavir was slightly altered (-11%) further to concomitant cetirizine administration.
The extent of absorption of levocetirizine is not reduced with food, although the rate of absorption is decreased.
In sensitive patients, the concurrent administration of cetirizine or levocetirizine and alcohol or other CNS depressants may cause additional reductions in alertness and impairment of performance.
There are no or limited amount of data (less than 300 pregnancy outcomes) from the use of levocetirizine in pregnant women. However, for cetirizine, the racemate of levocetirizine, a large amount of data (more than 1000 pregnancy outcomes) on pregnant women indicate no malformative or feto/neonatal toxicity. Animal studies do not indicate direct or indirect harmful effects with respect to pregnancy, embryo/fetal development, parturition or postnatal development (see section 5.3).
The use of levocetirizine may be considered during pregnancy, if necessary.
Cetirizine, the racemate of levocetirizine, has been shown to be excreted in human. Therefore, the excretion of levocetirizine in human milk is likely. Adverse reactions associated with levocetirizine may be observed in breastfed infants. Therefore, caution should be exercised when prescribing levocetirizine to lactating women.
For levocetirizine no clinical data are available.
Comparative clinical trials have revealed no evidence that levocetirizine at the recommended dose impairs mental alertness, reactivity or the ability to drive.
Nevertheless, some patients could experience somnolence, fatigue and asthenia under therapy with levocetirizine. Therefore, patients intending to drive, engage in potentially hazardous activities or operate machinery should take their response to the medicinal product into account.
In therapeutic studies in women and men aged 12 to 71 years, 15.1% of the patients in the levocetirizine 5 mg group had at least one adverse drug reaction compared to 11.3% in the placebo group. 91.6 % of these adverse drug reactions were mild to moderate.
In therapeutic trials, the dropout rate due to adverse events was 1.0% (9/935) with levocetirizine 5 mg and 1.8% (14/771) with placebo.
Clinical therapeutic trials with levocetirizine included 935 subjects exposed to the medicinal product at the recommended dose of 5 mg daily. From this pooling, following incidence of adverse drug reactions were reported at rates of 1% or greater (common: ≥1/100 to <1/10) under levocetirizine 5 mg or placebo:
Further uncommon incidences of adverse reactions (uncommon ≥1/1000 to <1/100) like asthenia or abdominal pain were observed.
The incidence of sedating adverse drug reactions such as somnolence, fatigue, and asthenia was altogether more common (8.1%) under levocetirizine 5 mg than under placebo (3.1%).
In two placebo-controlled studies in paediatric patients aged 6-11 months and aged 1 year to less than 6 years, 159 subjects were exposed to levocetirizine at the dose of 1.25 mg daily for 2 weeks and 1.25 mg twice daily respectively. The following incidence of adverse drug reactions was reported at rates of 1% or greater under levocetirizine or placebo.
As stated in sections 4.2 and 4.4, please note that even if clinical data presented in this section are available in children aged 6 months to 12 years, we do not have sufficient data to support the administration of the product to infants and toddlers aged less than 2 years.
Adverse reactions from post-marketing experience are per System Organ Class and per frequency. The frequency is defined as follows: very common (≥1/10); common (≥1/100 to <1/10); uncommon (≥1/1,000 to <1/100); rare (≥1/10,000 to <1/1,000); very rare (<1/10,000), not known (cannot be estimated from the available data).
Not known: hypersensitivity including anaphylaxis
Not known: increased appetite
Not known: aggression, agitation, hallucination, depression, insomnia, suicidal ideation, nightmare
Not known: convulsion, paraesthesia, dizziness, syncope, tremor, dysgeusia
Not known: vertigo
Not known: visual disturbances, blurred vision
Not known: palpitations, tachycardia
Not known: dyspnoea
Not known: nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea
Not known: hepatitis
Not known: dysuria, urinary retention
Not known: angioneurotic oedema, fixed drug eruption, pruritus, rash, urticaria
Not known: myalgia, arthralgia
Not known: oedema
Not known: weight increased, abnormal liver function tests
Methyl parahydroxybenzoate and propyl parahydroxybenzoate may cause allergic reactions (possibly delayed).
After levocetirizine discontinuation, pruritus has been reported.
Reporting suspected adverse reactions after authorisation of the medicinal product is important. It allows continued monitoring of the benefit/risk balance of the medicinal product. Healthcare professionals are asked to report any suspected adverse reactions via: Yellow Card Scheme, Website: www.mhra.gov.uk/yellowcard or search for MHRA Yellow Card in the Google Play or Apple App Store.
Not applicable.
© All content on this website, including data entry, data processing, decision support tools, "RxReasoner" logo and graphics, is the intellectual property of RxReasoner and is protected by copyright laws. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of any part of this content without explicit written permission from RxReasoner is strictly prohibited. Any third-party content used on this site is acknowledged and utilized under fair use principles.
