• Toxicological Research
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.321-324
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• 2004

Lethal dose 50% ($LD_{50}$) has been commonly used as a parameter for the estimation of acute toxicity not only in animal experiment, but also in human study. Several methods to estimate $LD_{50}$ had been introduced, but Spearman-Karber and Berens-Karber method have been widely used due to their relative convenience and accuracy. However, $LD_{50}$ values estimated from the two methods showed inconsistency and variation depending on the characteristics of mortality data. In this study, the two methods were comparatively investigated in terms of accuracy and stability for the estimation of $LD_{50}$.