Medication and Pharmacology Terms

An opiate is a pain-relieving substance derived directly from opium, a narrower category than the broader term opioid, which also includes synthetic drugs.

These drugs do not remove the source of pain; they change how the nervous system registers it, and the other effects follow from that.

A drug used to increase the number of blood cells, especially platelets, in some cancer patients receiving chemotherapy.

A substance being studied in the treatment of diarrhea caused by infection with Clostridium difficile (a type of bacteria that can grow without oxygen) in cancer patients.

A daily hormone tablet that prevents pregnancy chiefly by keeping the ovary from releasing an egg at all.

A drug used to treat certain types of non-small cell lung cancer.

A substance being studied in the treatment of cancer.

OTC identifies a medicine or health product available without a prescription, based on an established safety profile suitable for self-selection and use.

Surgery, radiation therapy, or a drug treatment to stop the functioning of the ovaries.

Surgery, radiation therapy, or a drug treatment to stop the functioning of the ovaries.

Medicines a person can buy and choose without a clinician, judged safe enough for self-treatment of problems people can recognize.

The threshold is not a fixed quantity: body size, kidney and liver function, and whatever else is already on board all move it.

A laboratory-made relative of testosterone shaped to build muscle with less of the male hormone effect.

Oxycodone hydrochloride is the salt form of oxycodone, an opioid pain reliever prescribed for moderate to severe pain.

The whole design rests on the tablet staying intact, since crushing it converts a slow dose into a large immediate one.

A form of the anticancer drug paclitaxel that is contained in very tiny, fat-like particles.

A form of the anticancer drug paclitaxel combined with a protein called poliglumex that may have fewer side effects and work better than paclitaxel.

An experimental compound designed to starve tumors of a DNA building block, and a clear example of a good idea that did not translate.

The active ingredient in a drug used to treat nausea and vomiting caused by cancer treatment.

The hydrochloride salt of palonosetron, a carbazole derivative and a selective serotonin receptor antagonist with antiemetic activity.