Lethal dose

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Lethal Dose

Lethal dose (pronunciation: lee-thal dohs) is a term used in toxicology to denote the amount of a substance that is sufficient to cause death in a living organism. The term is often used in the context of drug overdose or poisoning.

Etymology

The term 'lethal dose' is derived from the Latin word 'letalis', meaning 'deadly', and the English word 'dose', which refers to a specific quantity of a substance.

Definition

A lethal dose is typically expressed as LD followed by a subscript number (e.g., LD50), which represents the dose that is lethal to 50% of a population of test organisms (usually rats or mice). The lower the LD50 value, the more toxic the substance is considered to be.

Related Terms

  • Median lethal dose (LD50): The dose of a substance that is lethal to 50% of a population of test organisms.
  • Minimum lethal dose (MLD): The smallest dose of a substance that is capable of causing death in a specified animal species.
  • Maximum tolerated dose (MTD): The highest dose of a drug or treatment that does not cause unacceptable side effects.
  • Therapeutic index: The ratio of the lethal dose to the therapeutic dose of a drug, used as a measure of the relative safety of the drug for a particular treatment.

See Also

External links

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