An oral loading test to predict susceptibility to fluoropyrimidine drug toxicity

抗癌药物的副作用可能令人不快，但如果患者的基因与药物不匹配，则可能致命。一种常见的化疗药物氟尿嘧啶可能非常危险，但没有简单的方法来预测这一点。我们开发了一种简单的测试，在化疗前吞下少量的天然化学物质。结果应该允许医生预测患者是否会遭受氟尿嘧啶的严重副作用，因此可以减少剂量，或尝试其他药物。

Side-effects from anticancer drugs can be unpleasant, but may be deadly if a patient's genes are wrong for the drugs. A common chemotherapy drug, fluorouracil, can be very dangerous, but there's no simple way to predict this. We developed a simple test in which a small amount of a natural chemical is swallowed before chemotherapy. The results should allow the doctor to predict if a patient will suffer serious side effects on fluorouracil, so the dose can be reduced, or another drug tried.