By: <\/i><\/b>Kimberly Lapierre, PharmD Candidate c\/o 2017<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Since its inception in 2003, the Johnson Space Center Pharmacy has taken giant leaps\u00a0to advance the field of\u00a0pharmacy on Earth and in space.\u00a0Under the direction\u00a0of pharmacist Tina\u00a0Bayuse, the pharmacy is responsible for\u00a0preparing medication kits for astronauts at the International Space Station, creatively approaching medication challenges that come with the extraterrestrial territory, and providing ambulatory care for the Flight Medicine and Occupational Medicine clinics.1<\/sup>\u00a0The pharmacy packages two types of medication kits: convenience kits and\u00a0contingency\u00a0kits.\u00a0Convenience\u00a0kits include any medications a person on earth has on hand, whereas\u00a0contingency\u00a0kits are comprised of\u00a0drugs that are needed in more advanced situations, such as infection or cardiac arrest.<\/p>\n The contents of these kits address any predicable or unpredictable\u00a0medical complications an astronaut may encounter. The medication supply\u00a0is tremendously important given the effects space travel has on the body. For example, osteopenia is a common side effect of spaceflight as weight bearing bones and muscles deteriorate. A decrease in\u00a0gravity leads\u00a0to lack of\u00a0stress-induced bone remodeling and increased bone resorption.\u00a0In an\u00a0attempt to combat bone loss,\u00a0astronauts\u00a0may take\u00a0bisphosphonates, like\u00a0zolendronate\u00a0or\u00a0risedronate, or hormonal therapy, including selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs).2<\/sup> Secondly, astronauts experience decreased immune system\u00a0functioning\u00a0as a result of poorly reproducing T cells. This is further complicated by\u00a0the existence of microbes with increased virulence due to adaption to the space\u00a0environment.3<\/sup> Therefore, topical and systemic antifungals, antivirals, and antibiotics are included in the medication kits. Lastly, like any type of long term travel, space travel wreaks havoc on astronauts’ sleep wake cycles, with the majority of astronauts using sleeping pills and stimulants. An observational study\u00a0from 2012 that\u00a0examined sleep habits of astronauts from 80 space shuttle missions\u00a0found that 78% of crew members took sleep promoting drugs, mostly zolpidem,\u00a0on 52% of nights.4<\/sup><\/p>\n In addition to considering the needs of the astronauts when preparing the kits, the pharmacy must stock drugs with space appropriate dosage forms. The volume of the drugs is taken into consideration when first time fliers or doctors are making requests. Furthermore, how medications are prepared can be an obstacle. Tina\u00a0Bayuse\u00a0cites that managing alcohol levels in medicines and the ability to take drugs while wearing a\u00a0space suit are among the challenges.1<\/sup> Moreover, the dosage forms of medications can affect their stabilities, which is an important point to consider for long term missions.<\/p>\n The\u00a0\u201cStability of\u00a0Pharmacotherapeutic\u00a0and Nutritional Compounds\u201d study analyzed the stability of\u00a035\u00a0different medications of\u00a0various dosage forms such as liquids, tablets, and capsules. Multiple\u00a0stability kits were launched into space in July 2006\u00a0and each returned for testing at various time intervals from June 2007 to November 2008.5<\/sup> The medications were tested for degradation and compared against a control kit that stayed on the\u00a0ground. The results showed that the space kit medications degraded more rapidly than the ground control kits, with Augmentin\u00ae (amoxicillin\/clavulanate) being the most unstable due to the\u00a0clavulanate\u00a0component degrading by almost 50%. These results justify the space center’s current policy of short dating the medications to expire six months before the manufacturers given date. Moreover, drugs that were repackaged were even more susceptible to degradation than if kept in their original packaging.6 <\/sup>The decreased stability of medications in space contributes to another barrier: the need for more\u00a0frequent\u00a0resupply, which\u00a0may not be possible on longer missions.\u00a0Therefore, contingency kits that contain medications for emergency situations are not repackaged in order to preserve the shelf lives of its drugs.<\/p>\n Like prescribing and\u00a0dispensing medications on Earth, space pharmacy comes with high stakes. Therefore, three different pharmacists check each medication kit before it goes into orbit. Also, astronauts are encouraged to undergo drug tolerance testing, or trial runs, to ensure that unwanted side effects do not occur when taking a medication for the first time.1<\/sup>\u00a0These precautions minimize the inherent risk of taking medication in space. Although space pharmacy can be problematic, the Johnson Space Center Pharmacy team\u00a0approaches each challenge with ingenuity and expertise to ensure the safety of each and every one of its astronauts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n SOURCES:<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By: Kimberly Lapierre, PharmD Candidate c\/o 2017 – Since its inception in 2003, the Johnson Space Center Pharmacy has taken giant leaps\u00a0to advance the field of\u00a0pharmacy on Earth and in space.\u00a0Under the direction\u00a0of pharmacist Tina\u00a0Bayuse, the pharmacy is responsible for\u00a0preparing medication kits for astronauts at the International Space Station, creatively approaching medication challenges that come…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-news-politics"],"views":1231,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhochistj.org\/RhoChiPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhochistj.org\/RhoChiPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhochistj.org\/RhoChiPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhochistj.org\/RhoChiPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhochistj.org\/RhoChiPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rhochistj.org\/RhoChiPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhochistj.org\/RhoChiPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhochistj.org\/RhoChiPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhochistj.org\/RhoChiPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n