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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.
Even less safe are drugs such as digoxin, a cardiac glycoside; its therapeutic index is approximately 2:1. [12] Other examples of drugs with a narrow therapeutic range, which may require drug monitoring both to achieve therapeutic levels and to minimize toxicity, include dimercaprol, theophylline, warfarin and lithium carbonate.
Negative values of the decimal logarithm of the median lethal dose LD 50 (−log 10 (LD 50)) on a linearized toxicity scale encompassing 11 orders of magnitude. Water occupies the lowest toxicity position (1) while the toxicity scale is dominated by the botulinum toxin (12). [107] The LD 50 values have a very wide range.
While fatal overdoses are highly associated with drugs such as opiates, cocaine and alcohol, [2] deaths from other drugs such as caffeine are extremely rare. [21] This alphabetical list contains 634 people whose deaths can be reliably sourced to be the result of drug overdose or acute drug intoxication.
Toxicity is the degree to which a chemical substance or a particular mixture of substances can damage an organism. [1] Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a substructure of the organism, such as a cell (cytotoxicity) or an organ such as the liver (hepatotoxicity).
Alcohol can exacerbate the symptoms and may directly contribute to increased severity of symptoms. The reasons for toxicity vary depending on the mixture of drugs. Usually, most victims die after using two or more drugs in combination that suppress breathing, and the low blood oxygen level causes brain death.
U.S. Army Public Health Center Toxicology Lab technician assessing samples. Toxicology testing, also known as safety assessment, or toxicity testing, is the process of determining the degree to which a substance of interest negatively impacts the normal biological functions of an organism, given a certain exposure duration, route of exposure, and substance concentration.
When two drugs affect each other, it is a drug–drug interaction (DDI). The risk of a DDI increases with the number of drugs used. [1] A large share of elderly people regularly use five or more medications or supplements, with a significant risk of side-effects from drug–drug interactions. [2] Drug interactions can be of three kinds: