Chemotherapy:

• It is the branch of pharmacology dealing with drugs which selectively inhibit or destroy specific agents of diseases like bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites.
• Term “chemotherapy” is also extended to the use of drugs in the treatment of neoplastic diseases due to analogy between the malignant cells and the pathogenic microbes.
• Paul Ehrlich first coined the term chemotherapy in 1913 to describe drugs which attack invading organisms without harming the host. Thus the concept of selective toxicity is central to chemotherapy.
• They are most frquently used as well as misused drugs.