Lomustine(CeeNU®)

Pronounced: [LOW-muss-teen]

About Your Medication

Lomustine is an oral medicine that your doctor prescribed for the treatment of your cancer. Please take your lomustine as directed by your prescriber.

How to Take Your Medication

  • Take your lomustine at bedtime
  • Take on an empty stomach to reduce nausea
  • Swallow lomustine tablets whole with water. Do not break, chew, or dissolve tablets.
  • Avoid alcohol on the day you are to take lomustine.
  • If you miss a dose of your lomustine, take the medicine as soon as you remember on that day. Do not take two doses on the same day to make up for a missed dose.

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

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

Important Precautions

  • Lomustine 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 lomustine passes into breast milk. Nursing mothers should discuss with their healthcare providers whether to discontinue nursing or to discontinue lomustine.
  • Lomustine has been associated with an increased risk of liver injury. Your cancer clinic will check liver enzymes regularly to monitor for this.
  • Delayed lung toxicity has been reported with lomustine. Your cancer clinic will monitor your lung function.
  • Long-term use has been associated with secondary malignancies.

What foods and drugs may interact with my lomustine?

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 lomustine.

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 lomustine 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 lomustine in its original container with the lid tightly closed.
  • Keep the medication out of reach from children and pets.
  • Return expired, damaged, or unused lomustine to a pharmacy or hospital for disposal. Do not discard into the garbage or toilet, or anywhere that children or pets may have access.

Lomustine (CeeNU®) Side Effect Summary

This list does not include all possible side effects of lomustine. 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

  • Nausea and Vomiting – queasy sensations or actually throwing up food or stomach contents

What are your symptoms? / What can you do…
Mild Nausea or Vomiting – loss of appetite without a change in eating habits; or vomiting 1-2 times in 24 hours /
  • Stay well hydrated
  • Eat smaller, more frequent meals and snacks; avoid eating on an empty stomach
  • Avoid fried, greasy, salty, sweet, or spicy foods
  • Use anti-nausea medicine prescribed by the clinic

Moderate Nausea or Vomiting – eating less than usual but not losing weight or becoming dehydrated; or vomiting 3-5 times within 24 hours /
  • Try to manage using the measures listed above and take your anti-nausea medicine regularly
  • If not improved within 48 hours, or you are unable to stay hydrated or eat, Call the clinic

Severe Nausea or Vomiting – not being able to eat or stay hydrated; or vomiting more than 6 times within 24 hours /
  • Call the clinic

Below are some less common side effects of lomustine.

Less Common Side Effects / What Can I Do? /
  • When to Call the Clinic?

Fatigue /
  • Don’t over-exert yourself
  • Rest when you’re tired
/
  • Unable to perform normal daily activities

Alopecia
(hair loss)
Liver Dysfunction /
  • The clinic will monitor your labs to assess
/
  • Yellowing of eyes or skin

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.