Inappropriate use of the term “cytotoxicity” in scientific literature

We would like to draw the attention of the readers to the inappropriate use of term “cytotoxic” as a substitute for “antineoplastic”. This can be noticed in numerous scientific articles, especially those reporting the anticancer properties of certain chemical compounds. For example, there are published studies reporting the anticancer activity of certain drugs/chemicals and the authors have assessed the anticancer activities of some novel drugs against certain target cancers. These investigations have repeatedly involved the term “cytotoxic” instead of “antineoplastic”. For instance, recently a report has been published in DARU by Vosough et al. [1] about the anticancer activities of some compounds. In this study, the derivatives of nonsteroidal aromatase inhibitors (triazole analogues) have been synthesized. Then, the newly synthesized derivatives were assessed for anticancer activity against breast cancer cell lines and the results showed that these newly synthesized compounds possess potent cytotoxic activity. Similarly, there are numerous other research reports published either in DARU or elsewhere. These authors also have reported the anticancer activities of different compounds against various cancer cell lines [2-4]. Nonetheless, these authors have assessed the cytotoxicity as a measure of anti-neoplastic potential of certain drugs, but, reporting the effect as “cytotoxic” instead of either “anticancer” or “antineoplastic” might reduce the interest of readers.