Medicine In Space

 After Katy Perry went to space this week, I was inspired to look into what medicine they bring to space and other details! Here are some key points from a NASA Pharmaceutical Care Technical Brief (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ochmo-tb-006-pharmaceuticals.pdf) 

In space, crewmembers are at risk for: 

  • Bone fracture due to spaceflight-induced changes to bone
  • Renal stone formation
  • CV adaptations contributing to adverse mission performance and health 
  • Performance decrements and adverse health resulting from sleep loss, circadian resynchronization, and work overload 

There are concerns about medication efficacy and stability:

  • Altered gravity, radiation, temperature/humidity (radiation has not been shown to significantly interfere with usability of medications, but long-duration missions require additional considerations)
  • Studies show limited alteration in changes (including rate of degradation), but most medications lost less than 20% of API 
  • Concerns about long-duration spaceflight that extends past the drug expiration date --> most studies show medications extend long (1-10 years) after expiration dates of 1-2 years
Stability studies of medications stored over 550 earth days flown on ISS: 
Melatonin was had been expired by 11 months and was not within USP guidelines (90-110% API).


Our bodies experience physiological changes in space: 
  • Altered Vd 
  • Altered free drug concentration
  • Alterred renal/hepatic clearance 
  • Faster and more variable intestinal transit rate 
  • Alterations in immune response 

What medications do crew members use the most? (24 crewmembers on 10 missions over a 10-year period, not including OTC or previously prescribed meds)



71% of crew members used a sleep aid. SAS = space motion sickness 

What medications to they bring?
They consider logistical factors like stowage, inventory, and formulary needs. Medication kits vary. The International Space Station has two medical kits with 190 medications divided into "packs"
  • Emergency medical (epinephrine, lidocaine)
  • Convenience med (bacitracin, allergy meds, analgesics) 
  • Oral med (antibiotics, SSRI/SNRIs, birth control, antiemetics, heartburn medications, lisinopril, metoprolol, nitroglycerin) 
  • Topical and injectable med (antibiotics, antipsychotics, ketamine, diazepam, inhalers, hydromorphone)
  • Diagnostic 
  • Minor treatment 
  • Medical supply 
  • IV supply 
  • Physician equipment pack 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spice up your life

Image
After being told this blog could be about truly anything, I considered writing about my family dog Georgie (legally Giorgio and usually just George). Then, I thought surely I have more to talk about than just my dog. Then, I accidentally cried in medchem at the shock that we had Dr. Beleh’s last lecture and didn’t know it until the end, so I thought I’ll write about adapting to change and surprises poorly. All of this to say, Dr. Beleh and my dog are very important to me (I cry over him too). I’m not writing about either of these things! Consider this my personal campaign for everyone to spice up their life and love the little things just a little bit more. Life is so hard. Add pharmacy school and that’s hard too. I won’t begin to wonder what’s hard in your personal lives, but I know it’s not always easy. I’m a pessimist. But if I worried and pessimist-ed every hard thing in my life, I don’t think I’d get out of bed in the morning. Or I’d become the worst combination of the Grinch and ...
Read more

Conspiracy Theories and Numbers

Image
Over my many years of listening to conspiracy theories and anti-science rhetoric, I found that there are comprehend statistics and math.  The first issue is solvable, if the person is sincere.  Instead of listening to pseudoscience, politicians or those who simply want to advance their agenda, any individual can go on wonderful journeys to understand the science from primary sources and observations.  These journeys have been the most wonderful in my life, which I might even say are more rewarding that my travels to different places in our globe (not our flat earth!). The issue with numbers is different.  From my research and observations, I think we have evolved in a way to think about life in a finite smaller periods, which may be essential for survival and livelihood.  It is really hard to comprehend beyond 100 years, because that has been double or triple our life spans.  This has affected our ability to effectively think in terms of millions or billion...
Read more

Reasons why Dr. Beleh should lecture in P3 MedChem

Image
Unfortunately, this is not a list of reasons why Dr. Beleh should lecture in P3 MedChem (I think that list writes itself). I tried to write about something positive, I promise I really did. But I can’t seem to move past the season finale of the Pitt, our discussion this past week on vaccines, and a chart note I came across  at work.  For those who have not seen the show, the Pitt is a medical procedural that takes place over a shift in a busy ER in Pittsburg. Without spoiling anything, a child comes into the ER via ambulance presenting with an unknown viral infection. While the fictional doctors are throwing out differentials, I immediately thought of measles because TV writers love that stuff. Naturally, the child had measles and of course, the parents were against vaccines. They were also against lumbar punctures because the mother had read a post about how they could be dangerous. I won’t give anymore away, but I think you can imagine the frustration of the team trying to c...
Read more