Women often respond differently to tamoxifen which means they may need a higher dose to get the same effect.
Dutch researchers discovered that the body deals with the active ingredient of cough syrup the same way. This may offer an easier way to determine which women will metabolize tamoxifen differently. They say it's relatively harmless in comparison to the powerful anti cancer drug.
Women could take the cough drug and then be monitored to see how their body reacts. Doctors say they could then base the tamoxifen dosage on that reaction.
More studies on this idea are being planned.
