Medication and Pharmacology Terms

A medicine that relaxes the muscle squeezing the airways, so a narrowed breathing tube opens up again.

A substance being studied in the treatment of cancer.

A drug that makes cancer cells more sensitive to radiation and is also used as a diagnostic agent to determine how fast cancer cells grow.

A delivery vehicle rather than a drug: its entire job is to sit inside the tumor and wait for a neutron beam.

A substance being studied in the treatment of breast cancers caused by mutations (changes) in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.

Its usefulness rests less on potency than on delivery, since the liver destroys most of a swallowed dose before it reaches the wider body.

Bupivacaine is a long acting local anesthetic widely used for regional nerve blocks, epidurals, and pain control after surgery.

Chosen as often for what it does not do, since weight gain and sexual side effects are less common than with serotonin antidepressants.

Unlike a fast-acting sedative it does nothing useful in the moment, and its benefit appears only after steady daily use.

Three older drugs given together on a fixed schedule, a breast cancer regimen now largely displaced by newer combinations.

A drug used to lessen the toxic effects of substances that block the action of folic acid, especially the anticancer drug methotrexate.

A monoclonal antibody used to treat leukemia.

The smell of a chest rub, and one of the few household remedies that regularly sends small children to an emergency department.

An anticancer drug that belongs to the family of drugs called topoisomerase inhibitors.

An anticancer drug related in structure to camptothecin, a topoisomerase inhibitor.

A substance being studied in the treatment of some types of cancer.

A substance used to detect prostate cancer.

An anticancer drug that belongs to the family of drugs called antifungal agents.

A drug used to treat high blood pressure and urinary problems caused by an enlarged prostate.

A drug used to treat high blood pressure and certain heart problems.