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The median effective dose is the dose that produces a quantal effect (all or nothing) in 50% of the population that takes it (median referring to the 50% population base). [6] It is also sometimes abbreviated as the ED 50, meaning "effective dose for 50% of the population". The ED50 is commonly used as a measure of the reasonable expectancy of ...
The defined daily dose (DDD) is a statistical measure of drug consumption, defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Drug Statistics Methodology. It is defined in combination with the ATC Code drug classification system for grouping related drugs.
For many drugs, severe toxicities in humans occur at sublethal doses, which limit their maximum dose. A higher safety-based therapeutic index is preferable instead of a lower one; an individual would have to take a much higher dose of a drug to reach the lethal threshold than the dose taken to induce the therapeutic effect of the drug.
Another use is in the therapeutic drug monitoring of drugs with a narrow therapeutic index. For example, gentamicin is an antibiotic that can be nephrotoxic (kidney damaging) and ototoxic (hearing damaging); measurement of gentamicin through concentrations in a patient's plasma and calculation of the AUC is used to guide the dosage of this drug ...
3) Regarding dosage adjustment to recommend, this TDM result suggests that a doubled dose of 800 mg daily might be suitable to drive the concentration curve close to target (blue dotted line). Note that this interpretation assumes that the patient's adherence to prescription is good, and that the sample measurement is accurate.
Drug titration is the process of adjusting the dose of a medication for the maximum benefit without adverse effects. [1] When a drug has a narrow therapeutic index, titration is especially important, because the range between the dose at which a drug is effective and the dose at which side effects occur is small. [2]
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A loading dose is most useful for drugs that are eliminated from the body relatively slowly, i.e. have a long systemic half-life. Such drugs need only a low maintenance dose in order to keep the amount of the drug in the body at the appropriate therapeutic level , but this also means that, without an initial higher dose, it would take a long ...