ABSTRACT
Antineoplastic agents, traditionally referred to as chemotherapeutic agents, are used therapeutically in the treatment of cancer.* The drugs include a wide variety of diverse chemicals whose mechanisms of action are targeted toward arresting aberrant cell proliferation generally associated with cancerous cell growth. Although the concept that chemical agents could interfere with cell proliferation was known by about the turn of the twentieth century, it was not until the end of World War I that the biological and chemical actions of alkylating agents, such as the nitrogen mustards, were understood. By the end of World War II, the conviction that such drugs could be used in the treatment of cancer prompted the search for antineoplastic drugs that would forever impact the therapeutic intervention of neoplastic disease.
