ReviewNature reviews. Cancer2025
Conventional chemotherapy: millions of cures, unresolved therapeutic index.
Review in Nature reviews. Cancer, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed.
- Engineered probiotic-propelled micro-robot as biological truck for deep tumor penetration and treatment.Materials today. Bio · 2026Article
- Hierarchical Cascade-Activated Microneedle Patches for Photothermal and Chemotherapy.Smart medicine · 2026Article
- Hydrolytically Degradable Polyethylene Glycol Bottlebrush Polymers Address the Stability-Clearance Trade-Off for Drug Delivery.Polymer science & technology (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Article
- Ultrasound-Activated Nanoinhibitors Blocking the Chemo-Immune Checkpoint to Overcome Chemotherapy-Induced Immune Resistance.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Chemical-Sensing Catheters for Long-Term and Personalized Therapeutic Management.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Article
- Association between antibiotic use and pathologic response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer: a multicentre retrospective cohort study.Breast (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2026Article
- Dihydroergotamine alleviates circadian rhythm disorders through predicted interaction with to CRY1.Molecular diversity · 2026Article
- A Cascade-Activatable Prodrug Nanomedicine for Photothermally Augmented in Situ Synergistic Chemo/Chemodynamic Therapy.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2026Article
- Zinc-Doped Calcium Phosphate Nanoagonists Amplifies cGAS-STING Signaling for Boosting Pyroptosis-Induced Cancer Immunotherapy.Journal of functional biomaterials · 2026Article
- Tumor organoids as a revolutionary platform for advancing cancer nanomedicine.Molecular cancer · 2026Review
- Therapy-Driven Molecular Evolution of Bladder Cancer: Roles of Cellular Plasticity and Tumor Microenvironment.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- A prostate-specific membrane antigen targeted small molecule-drug conjugate for efficient prostate cancer therapy at a low dosage.International journal of pharmaceutics: X · 2026Article
- Lipid metabolism reprogramming shapes the immune landscape in the tumor microenvironment.Cellular & molecular immunology · 2026Review
- A Comprehensive Review on the Anticancer Activity of Plant Peptides and Their Mechanisms of Action.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Decoding and exploiting intratumoral microbiota: from microenvironment modulation to clinical intervention.Molecular biology reports · 2026Review
- Nivolumab Enhances the Cytotoxicity of Chemotherapeutic Agents in A549 Lung Adenocarcinoma Cell Lines.Current issues in molecular biology · 2026Article
- Ultrasound-Activated Prodrugs for Precision Cancer Therapy: From Mechanical and Cavitation Effects to Advanced Sonochemical Activation.Chem & bio engineering · 2026Review
- Metabolic drivers of genome instability in cancer: mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities.Experimental hematology & oncology · 2026Review
- Identification of a myosin 1B-binding aptamer for fluorescence imaging and targeted therapy of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.Materials today. Bio · 2026Article
- A self-supplying HMaterials today. Bio · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In recent decades, millions of patients with cancer have been cured by chemotherapy alone. By 'cure', we mean that patients with cancers that would be fatal if left untreated receive a time-limited course of chemotherapy and their cancer disappears, never to return. In an era when hundreds of thousands of cancer genomes have been sequenced, a remarkable fact persists: in most patients who have been cured, we still do not fully understand the mechanisms underlying the therapeutic index by which the tumour cells are killed, but normal cells are somehow spared. In contrast, in more recent years, patients with cancer have benefited from targeted therapies that usually do not cure but whose mechanisms of therapeutic index are, at least superficially, understood. In this Perspective, we will explore the various and sometimes contradictory models that have attempted to explain why chemotherapy can cure some patients with cancer, and what gaps in our understanding of the therapeutic index of chemotherapy remain to be filled. We will summarize principles which have benefited curative conventional chemotherapy regimens in the past, principles which might be deployed in constructing combinations that include modern targeted therapies.
Indexed as
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.