Chemotherapy Regimens

A fundamental philosophy of combination cancer therapy is that different drugs work through different cytotoxic mechanisms. Because they have different dose-limiting adverse effects, they can be given together at full doses in chemotherapy regimens.

The term "induction regimen" refers to a chemotherapy regimen which is used for the initial treatment of a disease.

Chemotherapy regimens are often identified by acronyms, identifying the agents used in combination. However, the letters used are not consistent across regimens, and in some cases (for example, "BEACOPP") the same letter combination is used to represent two different treatments: there is not a naming standard for chemotherapy regimens. This page merely lists commonly used conventions.