Vol. 7, Issue 1, Part A (2025)

This review provides an overview of anticancer drug therapies, including their classifications, mechanism of action, and the evolution of treatment modalities. The review emphasizes the transition from traditional chemotherapeutic agents to targeted therapies with traditional chemotherapeutic agents, targeted therapies, immunotherapies, monoclonal antibodies, tyrosine kinase inhibitors, hormone therapies, and novel methods like CAR-T cell therapy and nanotechnology delivery systems. These drugs act through diverse mechanisms like apoptosis induction, DNA damage, inhibition of angiogenesis, and cell cycle modulation. In spite of tremendous therapeutic advances, there are significant hurdles to be overcome, mainly drug resistance to treatment, access to treatment on an equitable basis globally, and right dosing and targeting to achieve maximum benefit with least damage through personalized therapy. Focus is on the molecular targeting strategies, drug delivery system advances and drug resistance hurdles. Emerging themes focus on the role of genomic profiling to tailor treatment to individual needs, advances in drug delivery systems and global coordination to better treatment outcomes and elimination of disparities in the delivery of cancer treatment. The review highlights the need to innovate and make modern treatment options more equally accessible to humans worldwide to better the outcome in human lives.