Table 2.

Terrestrial U.K. evidence of drug stability beyond expiration for ISS formulary drugs

Medication	Shelf life (mo)	Medication	Shelf life (mo)
Acetaminophen tablet	36	Loratadine tablet	36
Acetazolamide tablet	48	Medroxyprogesterone tablet	60
Amoxicillin capsule	36-48	Melatonin tablet	36
Aspirin tablet	36	Metronidazole	36
Atropine injectable	36	*Modafinil tablet	36
Azithromycin tablet	48–60	Mometasone nasal spray	36
Bisacodyl tablet	36	Naloxone injectable	36
Clindamycin capsule	36	Olopatadine ophthalmic solution	36
Clotrimazole cream	36	Omeprazole capsule	36
Diazepam injectable	36	Ondansetron tablet	36
Diphenhydramine tablet/injectable	36	Oxymetazoline nasal spray	36
Doxycycline capsule	36–60	Promethazine tablet/injectable	36
Fluconazole tablet	60	Pseudoephedrine	36
Hydrocortisone cream	60	Sertraline tablet	60
Ibuprofen tablet	36	Sodium chloride (normal saline)	36
Ketamine injectable	60	Sulfamethoxazole/Trimethoprim tablet	60
Levofloxacin tablet	36–60	Tamulosin capsule	48
Lidocaine injectable	36	Triamcinolone cream	36
Lisinopril tablet	48	Valacyclovir tablet	36
*Loperamide capsule	60	*Zolpidem tablet	36

Medications presented were found by the United Kingdom’s electronic Medical Compendium (eMC) review to be stable for extended shelf life as indicated. All drugs presented are in the ISS formulary (though manufacturing, excipient content, and packaging may vary significantly between eMC formulations and spaceflight-flown medications). Drugs in bold italics were found to be unstable after spaceflight in one or more spaceflight stability studies in contrast to terrestrial study results. Drugs marked by an asterisk (*) were found to have degradant products of unknown significance in post-spaceflight analysis. The results extracted from the United Kingdom’s electronic Medicines Compendium;¹⁴ the spaceflight stability results extracted from Du et al.,¹⁵ Wotring,¹ and Wu et al.¹⁷