Ruxolitinib(Jakafi®)

Pronounced: [RUX-oh-LI-ti-nib]

About Your Medication

  • Ruxolitinib is an oral medicine most often used to treat myelofibrosis. It is sometimes used to treat certain cancers. Please take your ruxolitinib as directed by your prescriber.

How to Take Your Medication

  • Take your ruxolitinib at approximately the same time each day
  • Ruxolitinib can be taken with or without food.
  • If you miss a dose of your ruxolitinib, take the medicine as soon as you remember on that day.
  • Do not take two doses at the same time to make up for a missed dose.

Tell Your Healthcare Provider if you have any trouble taking your ruxolitinib, including:

  • Trouble swallowing pills
  • Forgetting to take doses
  • Trouble affording your medications
  • Throwing up pills
  • Side effects

Important Precautions

  • Ruxolitinib may be harmful to an unborn child. If sexually active with a partner that is pregnant or who may become pregnant during and for several weeks after treatment, two forms of contraception must be used (a condom and another effective form of birth control).
  • It is not known whether ruxolitinib passes into breast milk. Nursing mothers should discuss with their healthcare providers whether to discontinue nursing or to discontinue ruxolitinib.
  • Nonmelanoma skin cancer has been report in patients that have taken ruxolitinib.

What foods and drugs may interact with my ruxolitinib?

Please talk to your healthcare provider at your cancer clinic before starting or stopping any medications, vitamins, or herbal supplements, because some of these may interact with your ruxolitinib. Some examples of products that interact with ruxolitinib include:

  • Grapefruit or grapefruit juice
  • Certain anti-infectives such as rifampin (Rifadin®)
  • Some medications for mood, like St. John’s Wort and nefazodone (Serzone®)
  • Certain antifungals, such as itraconazole (Sporanox®), ketoconazole (Nizoral®), posaconazole (Noxafil®), and voriconazole (Vfend®)

Storage, Handling, and Disposal

It is important to keep these safeguards in mind when storing and handling oral anticancer therapy to keep you and your caregivers safe.

  • Keep your ruxolitinib in a safe place, away from other family members’ medications and away from any food or drinks.
  • Store the medication at room temperature in a dry location – avoid storing your medication in the bathroom.
  • Store ruxolitinib in its original container with the lid tightly closed.
  • Keep the medication out of reach from children and pets.
  • Return expired, damaged, or unused ruxolitinib to a pharmacy or hospital for disposal. Do not discard into the garbage or toilet, or anywhere that children or pets may have access.

Ruxolitinib (Jakafi®) Side Effect Summary

This list does not include all possible side effects of ruxolitinib. If you have an unusual symptom, call the clinic. Below are the most common side effects:

  • Decrease in Blood Cell Counts (white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets). This can cause you to be more at risk of infection, fatigue, and bleeding.

What Can I Do? / When to Call the Clinic?
  • Wash hands regularly
  • Avoid close contact with others who are sick
  • Avoid activities with a high potential for injury and bleeding (contact sports, etc.)
  • The clinic will monitor your labs regularly. Make sure not to miss clinic visits or lab draws
/
  • Temperature of 100.5˚F or higher- CONTACT THE CLINIC IMMEDIATELY
  • Any signs of infection
  • Unusual tiredness or weakness
  • Shortness of breath, difficulty breathing
  • Unusual bleeding or bruising

  • Dizziness

What Can I Do? / When to Call the Clinic?
  • Get up slowly when sitting or lying down
/
  • Having difficulty maintaining your balance while walking
  • If you faint or fall

  • Headache

What are your symptoms? / What can you do…
Mild headache (slightly worse than before you started taking the drug) /
  • Please use an over-the-counter pain medicine as directed by your cancer clinic

Moderate headache (difficulty performing some of your normal daily activities) /
  • Try to manage using the measures listed above.
  • If it does not get better after a few days, call the clinic

Severe headache (severely interfering with your normal daily activities or inability to get out of bed) /
  • Call the clinic

Below are some less common side effects of ruxolitinib.

Less Common Side Effects / What Can I Do? / When to Call the Clinic?
Infection /
  • Wash hands regularly
  • Avoid close contact with others who are sick
/
  • Temperature of 100.5˚F or higher- CONTACT IMMEDIATELY
  • Any signs of infection
  • Unusual tiredness or weakness

Who to Call With Questions?

If you are having an emergency, call 911

Who to Call With Questions?

If you are having an emergency, call 911

Who to Call With Questions?

If you are having an emergency, call 911

Who to Call With Questions?

If you are having an emergency, call 911

Copyright 2017 Michigan Oncology Quality Consortium, All rights reserved. V.12-14 MOQC-7.31.2018

MOQC makes no representations or warranties and explicitly disclaims the appropriateness or applicability of the MOQC Content to any specific patient's care or treatment. Any clinician seeking to treat a patient using the MOQC Content is expected to use independent medical judgment in the context of individual clinical circumstances of a specific patient's care or treatment.