A urine test could help doctors decide which drugs will be most effective for their patients, scientists have shown.In trials the test predicted how well men would respond to paracetamol. The experts from Imperial College London and the drug giant Pfizer report their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers say this kind of "metabolic profiling" could ultimately allow doctors to work out perfect drug matches for individuals, with no risk of side effects. "Pre-clinical studies had suggested it might be possible to predict how individuals would react to drugs by looking at their pre-dose metabolite profiles, but this is the first time that anyone has been able to show convincingly that such a test could work in humans.
"The beauty of the pre-dose metabolite profiling is that it can tap into both genetic and environmental factors influencing drug treatment outcomes."
The full BBC story can be found here.
