Can You Split Losartan?

Answer

Hi Gigi and thanks for reaching out to us. I appreciate you asking. I sometimes find out after the fact that my patients have cut medication in half, which can potentially be unsafe. It depends on the medication.

Splitting Losartan? 

Losartan is a medication usually taken once daily to treat high blood pressure. It is perfectly safe to cut your losartan tablet in half.

In general, as long as the tablet doesn’t say extended release, delayed release, or specifically not to cut them, it’s usually safe to cut these medications in half. However, exceptions do exist, so please continue to double-check for each individual medication. Losartan tablets do not have any sort of extended-release mechanism or exception and are safe to split.

However, I want to point out that I don’t believe that I have ever seen a losartan tablet that was scored (an imprint halfway through the tablet to allow it to be broken in half easier). Some manufacturers, including the brand, produce these tablets in a teardrop shape which would be extremely difficult to split evenly.

Therefore, I would recommend using a very thin and sharp blade to cut through them such as a tablet splitter or a new razor blade. If you were to use a regular knife from your kitchen, you might end up with two uneven portions and some unusable powder.  

Lastly, losartan 12.5mg is a very low dose. I have seen it once or twice throughout my career as a pharmacist, but it’s rare. While it’s safe to split the medication, this might not be an effective dose to treat your blood pressure. Please only split these if your physician advised you to cut these in half.

Final Words

I hope this helps! Feel free to write us again in the future.