The role of the LD50 determination in drug safety evaluation.
Acute toxicology studies in animals are essential to drug development. Often such experiments seek to establish precisely the median lethal dose (LD50) in rodents. As scientific needs rarely require an exact value, practices and regulations should be changed to provide the option of obtaining adequate information on the acute toxicity of a drug with fewer animals than the precise LD50 test demands.
D000056:Accident Prevention; D000818:Animals; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D007928:Lethal Dose 50; D008297:Male; D012449:Safety; D014116:Toxicology