who-essential

Bleomycin is the 'B' in BEP for testicular cancer and ABVD for Hodgkin lymphoma; its unique danger is scarring of the lungs, so lung function is monitored and it is often dropped when safe.

Cyclophosphamide is an alkylating chemotherapy that damages DNA in dividing cells. It is part of CHOP for lymphoma, AC for breast cancer and VAC for childhood sarcomas, clears lymphocytes before CAR-T and prevents graft-versus-host disease after transplant; bladder bleeding, infertility and secondary leukaemia are its harms.

The first antibiotic used as an anticancer drug (1954) and still the core of chemotherapy for Wilms tumour, rhabdomyosarcoma and gestational trophoblastic disease.

Etoposide is a chemotherapy from the mayapple plant, essential to curing testicular cancer (BEP), treating small-cell lung cancer, lymphomas, childhood sarcomas and leukaemias, and used in transplant conditioning.

The 1957 chemotherapy that remains the backbone of treatment for bowel, stomach, pancreatic, anal, head and neck and breast cancers, and as a cream for skin precancers.

A versatile chemotherapy used in pancreatic, bladder, lung, ovarian, breast and biliary cancers, in nasopharyngeal cancer, and as a bladder instillation.

Irinotecan is a topoisomerase-blocking chemotherapy central to bowel and pancreatic cancer regimens (FOLFIRI, FOLFIRINOX, NALIRIFOX) and to salvage therapy in childhood sarcomas; it carries the same warhead as the deruxtecan ADC payloads.

The 1948 antifolate that produced the first chemotherapy remissions in childhood leukaemia and the first cure of a solid tumour; still essential in ALL, lymphoma, osteosarcoma and CNS lymphoma.

The platinum drug that works in bowel cancer where cisplatin does not, the 'OX' in FOLFOX and CAPOX; its cost is nerve damage in hands and feet.

Vinblastine is the vinca alkaloid in ABVD, the standard Hodgkin lymphoma regimen, and was formerly in the cisplatin combinations that first cured testicular cancer.

A plant-derived chemotherapy from the Madagascar periwinkle that has been in almost every childhood leukaemia and lymphoma regimen since the 1960s.