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The therapeutic window (or pharmaceutical window) of a drug is the range of drug dosages which can treat disease effectively without having toxic effects. [18] Medication with a small therapeutic window must be administered with care and control, frequently measuring blood concentration of the drug, to avoid harm.
This type of adverse effect that results from pharmaceutical drug exposure is commonly due to interactions of the drug with its intended target. In this case, both the therapeutic and toxic targets are the same. To avoid toxicity during treatment, many times the drug needs to be changed to target a different aspect of the illness or symptoms.
A compound with a wide therapeutic index (greater than five) exerts its desired effect at a dose substantially below its toxic dose. Those with a narrow margin are more difficult to dose and administer, and may require therapeutic drug monitoring (examples are warfarin , some antiepileptics , aminoglycoside antibiotics ).
This depends on the need for the effect, and also the toxicity. The toxicity and even the lethality of a drug can be quantified by the TD 50 and LD 50 respectively. Ideally, the effective dose would be substantially less than either the toxic or lethal dose for a drug to be therapeutically relevant.
The protective index is similar to the therapeutic index, but concerns toxicity (TD 50) rather than lethality (LD 50); thus, the protective index is a smaller ratio. Toxicity can take many forms, as drugs typically have multiple side effects of varying severity, so a specific criterion of toxicity must be specified for the protective index to ...
Medical toxicology is a subspecialty of medicine focusing on toxicology and providing the diagnosis, management, and prevention of poisoning and other adverse effects due to medications, occupational and environmental toxicants, and biological agents. [1]
In addition, toxicity categories may be used for regulatory purposes other than labeling, such as classification for restricted use and requirements for child-resistant packaging. In certain cases, statements based upon the Toxicity Category of the product as diluted for use are also permitted. A Toxicity Category is assigned for each of five ...
The Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE), [1] formerly called the Common Toxicity Criteria (CTC or NCI-CTC), are a set of criteria for the standardized classification of adverse events of drugs and treatment used in cancer therapy. The CTCAE system is a product of the US National Cancer Institute (NCI).