Where Failure Is Not an Option -Personalized Medicine in Astronauts.
Drug safety and efficacy are highly variable among patients. Most patients will experience the desired drug effect, but some may suffer from adverse drug reactions or gain no benefit. Pharmacogenetic testing serves as a pre-treatment diagnostic option in situations where failure or adverse events should be avoided at all costs. One such situation is human space flight. On the international space station (ISS), a list of drugs is available to cover typical emergency settings, as well as the long-term treatment of common conditions for the use in self-medicating common ailments developing over a definite period. Here, we scrutinized the list of the 78 drugs permanently available at the ISS (year 2014) to determine the extent to which their metabolism may be affected by genetic polymorphisms, potentially requiring genotype-specific dosing or choice of an alternative drug. The purpose of this analysis was to estimate the potential benefit of pharmacogenetic diagnostics in astronauts to prevent therapy failure or side effects.
Research Division, Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices, Bonn, Germany; Centre for Translational Medicine, University Bonn Medical Faculty, Bonn, Germany.
Julia C
JC
Stingl
Research Division, Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices, Bonn, Germany.
Susanne
S
Welker
Institute for clinical chemistry and clinical pharmacology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
Gunther
G
Hartmann
Space Medicine Office, European Space Agency, Cologne, Germany.
Volker
V
Damann
Institute of Aerospace Medicine, German Aerospace Center, Cologne, Germany.
Ruppert
R
Gerzer
D018480:Astronauts; D064420:Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions; D006801:Humans; D010597:Pharmacogenetics; D057285:Precision Medicine / Q000379:methods*; D012651:Self Medication; D013026:Space Flight