Ceiling effect

Encyclopedia : C : CE : CEI : Ceiling effect

In pharmacology, the term ceiling effect refers to the property of increasing doses of a given medication to have progressively smaller incremental effect (an example of diminishing returns). Narcotics, such as morphine, serve as a classic example of the ceiling effect; increasing the dose of a narcotic frequently leads to smaller and smaller gains in relief of pain. In many cases, the severity of side effects from a medication increases as the dose increases, long after its therapeutic ceiling has been reached.

In statistics, the term ceiling effect refers an effect whereby data cannot take on a value higher than some "ceiling."

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.