When comparing the safety of two drugs, do you look for specific side effects/adverse reactions? Or you just look for LD50 to compare toxicity of both drugs?
Most importantly is the answer to the question "can my body tolerate the drugs? " before looking for how much will it tolerate?
Dear it includes ED50%, TD50% and LD50% all should be looked for to declare the safety status of a new drug in case of animal model trial. While if you are comparing safety of traditionally used drugs you can compare there specific side effects at their normal safe doses in human studies under ethical approval after informed written consent.
What are the most important Adverse reactions that I should check for when comparing two drugs? @Ashique
When comparing the safety of 2 drugs, one thing that you take into consideration is the "therapeutic window", a ratio between the minimum effective drug concentration and the minimum toxic concentration. The drug with narrow therapeutic window has a higher risk to induce an adverse effect, which means one drug can be less safe than the other even they have the same LD50. Type of side effects differs case by case, but therapeutic window is a tool you can use to evaluate drug safety in general.
How can I find the minimum effective concentration and minimum toxic concentration?
Dear Dr Elsersy,
The LD50 test is obsolete and does not give any relevant information re drug safety. It is an indication of lethality in acute overdose whereas in drug safety you are interested in potential side effect at chronic use of low therapeutic doses.
The effects of acute toxicity can be totally different from side effects as to target organs and effects.
it titally depends on what kind of drugs you are interested in. For instance, for anticancer drug you accept more serious side effects than an antihypertensive agent.
My suggestion is that you specify your question what kind of drugs you are interested in, and whether you are looking for methods in preclinical drug safety studies in animals, or for e.g. post-marketing surveillance.
But forget about the LD50!
Wishing you much succes,
Sincerely,
Prof. Frederik A. de Wolff
Leiden University, The Netherlands
Indeed, I have tons of Qs with regard to drug Safety Prof.Frederik, so which book would you recommend me to read with regard to Pharmacovigilance/Drug Safety/Adverse Drug Reactions, and being able to interpret the adverse drug reactions profile for any drug?
Most importantly is the half-life of a drug then the metabolites, but manufacturers rarely state these. Any drug symptomatized by organ disfunction should be used with care
How half-life will enhance my perspective on the safety of the drug? Dr.Akinniyl
It is hard to recommend one single textbook. Now we have internet available most data you need can be found on reliable websites such as Mayo Clinic.
But what you need is a good basic knowledge of clinical pharmacology and toxicology. Knowledge of pharmacokinetics only, as Dr Akinniyi suggests, is important but not enough. Pharmacodynamics is at least as important, for pharmacovigilance even more so. You should have knowledge of organ toxicity that can be used by drugs, and understand the mechanisms of both wanted and adverse effects.
If you could raise the funds, following a course abroad e.g. In the UK would be very helpful.
Not only the half-life but also the metabolites. If the metabolites are well tolerated then the half-life alone will be a good indicator as long as the body could excrete them all
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