Effective half-life

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For other uses, see Half-life (disambiguation).

Effective half-life denotes the halving of radioactive material in a living organism by means of radioactive decay and biological excretion. A decay constant is needed to calculate the half-life. It is the sum of the biological and physical decay constants, as in the formula:

{\lambda_e} \, = {\lambda_p} \, + {\lambda_b} \,

With the decay constant it is possible to calculate the effective half-life using the formula:

t_{1/2} = \frac{\ln (2)}{\lambda_e}

The biological decay constant is often approximated as it is more difficult to accurately determine than the physical decay constant.

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