Forecasting the Change of Renal Stone Occurrence Rates in Astronauts

Changes in urine chemistry, during and post flight, potentially increases the risk of renal stones in astronauts. Although much is known about the effects of space flight on urine chemistry, no inflight incidences of renal stones in US astronauts exists and the question How much does this risk change with space flight? remains difficult to accurately quantify. In this discussion, we tackle this question utilizing a combination of deterministic and probabilistic modeling that implements the physics behind free stone growth and agglomeration, speciation of urine chemistry and published observations of population renal stone incidences to estimate changes in the rate of renal stone occurrence.