Dogs should undergo a physical examination by a veterinary surgeon before starting treatment and a desired body weight or body condition score identified. To ensure correct dosing during the treatment period, the owner should seek advice from the responsible veterinary surgeon in connection to each monthly dosing adjustment.

Withdraw product from the bottle using the supplied dosing device and administer the product once daily directly into the mouth or on a small amount of food. Slentrol can be administered with or without food.

The recommended starting dose of Slentrol is 0.05 mg/kg initial body weight per day (0.01 ml/kg/day) by oral administration.

After two weeks of therapy, the initial dose volume should be doubled. Following these initial 4 weeks of therapy, dogs should be weighed monthly during treatment with the product and dose adjustments are made monthly according to effect as described below.

At the end of each month of therapy, the percentage of body weight loss should be determined. If the body weight loss since previous monthly weighing has been >3% body weight per month (equivalent to 0.1% body weight per day); the dose (number of ml administered) should be kept the same. If the bodyweight loss since previous monthly weighing has been <3% body weight per month, the dose should be increased without adjusting for the dog’s current body weight. The first time a conditional increase is required, the dose should be increased by 100% (doubled). In subsequent required conditional increases, the dose should be increased by 50% (increasing the dose volume to 1.5 times the volume administered in the previous month) up to a maximum dose of the product of 0.2 ml/kg current body weight. These adjustments should be continued until the weight targeted at the start of therapy is achieved.

Although not observed in clinical trials, in the case where body weight loss since previous monthly weighing has been >12% per month (equivalent to 0.4% body weight per day), the dose should be reduced by 25%.

According to clinical studies, a mean weight loss of about 18 to 20% after six months of weight loss therapy can be anticipated.

The duration of treatment with the product must not exceed 12 months and the dose of the product must not exceed a maximum of 0.2 ml/kg current body weight (1 mg/kg dirlotapide).

3 % body weight loss per month = 0.7 % per week = 0.1 % per day.

The lowest validated dose for the dosing device is 0.05 ml. This is the starting dose for a 5 kg dog.