Dose

In pharmacology, dose is understood to be the amount of active ingredient of a medicine, expressed in units of volume or weight per unit dose depending on the presentation, which will be administered at once. It is also the amount of effective drug. Overdose is taking more than the maximum tolerated dose. At its extreme, it can be a lethal dose. Medications can be presented in multi-dose or unit-dose form. In the unit dose or unit dose, each unit of medication is taken and is identified with its batch and expiration date. At the hospital level, unit doses are increasingly used because they are more comfortable and avoid errors in taking them.

Maximum tolerated dose

The maximum tolerated dose, MTD, is the highest dose of a drug or treatment that a patient can receive without causing unacceptable side effects, such as cellular or organ death or dysfunction, or effects that decrease life expectancy or greater than 10% retardation of body weight relative to control subjects. Usually determined during clinical trials, by gradually increasing doses until the highest dose with tolerable side effects is found.

Radiology

In Radiology and Radiological Protection, the term dose is used for the amount of radiation received by material, and more typically, by a living being. Depending on the objective of the measure, various magnitudes are defined:

• Absorbed dose
• Equivalent dose
• Effective dose