Quantitative Concept
therapeutic index
ther·a·peu·tic in·dex
Subclass of:
Treatment outcome
Definitions related to therapeutic index:
  • An indicator of the benefits and risks of treatment.
    NLM Medical Subject Headings
    U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2025
  • The difference between the concentration at which clinical benefit is seen and that at which toxicity occurs. It is expressed as the range between the median effective dose and the median toxic dose.The larger the therapeutic index the safer a drug is.
    NCI
    U.S. National Cancer Institute, 2021
  • The ratio of the dose that produces toxicity (denominator) to the dose that produces a clinically desired or effective response (numerator). NOTE: The therapeutic index is a measure of a drug's safety, because a larger value indicates a wide margin between doses that are effective and doses that are toxic.
    CDISC Terminology
    Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC), 2021
  • Therapeutic index, margin of safety that exists between the dose of a drug that produces the desired effect and the dose that produces unwanted and possibly dangerous side effects. This relationship is defined as the ratio LD50:ED50, where LD50 is the dose at which a drug kills 50 percent of a test...
    Encyclopedia Britannica
    Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2025
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