Meaning & use
cytotoxic
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivenot comparablemedical
Poisonous to living cells, able to damage them or kill them.
Grammar: Usually placed before a noun (cytotoxic drugs) or after be (the compound is cytotoxic).
Patterns
- cytotoxic to something
- a cytotoxic drug
- cytotoxic effect
The compound proved cytotoxic to several kinds of tumor cells in the laboratory.
Nurses wear gloves and gowns when preparing cytotoxic medicines.
Some immune cells have a cytotoxic role, destroying cells infected by viruses.
nounusually pluralmedical
A drug that kills or stops the growth of cells, especially in chemotherapy.
Grammar: Mostly used in the plural: the cytotoxics.
Patterns
- treated with cytotoxics
Patients receiving cytotoxics often lose their hair temporarily.
Hospitals store cytotoxics in clearly marked containers.
Word forms
| plural | cytotoxics |
|---|
Common combinations
- cytotoxic drug
- The oncologist explained how each cytotoxic drug would be given.
- cytotoxic effect
- Researchers measured the cytotoxic effect of the extract on cancer cells.
- cytotoxic to cells
- High doses of the chemical were cytotoxic to healthy cells too.
- cytotoxic T cell
- A cytotoxic T cell can recognize and kill an infected cell.
- cytotoxic chemotherapy
- Cytotoxic chemotherapy is often combined with surgery.
Synonyms and how they differ
- toxic
- Toxic is a general word for poisonous to anything, while cytotoxic specifically means poisonous to cells.
- cytocidal
- Cytocidal is a rarer, more purely technical word for killing cells; cytotoxic can also mean harmful without necessarily killing.
- cell-killing
- Cell-killing is a plain-English description, less formal than cytotoxic and rarely used in medical writing.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: cytotoxic or cytostatic?
cytotoxic vs cytostatic
Cytostatic means stopping cells from multiplying without killing them, whereas cytotoxic means damaging or killing them.
Practice
Doctors describe a drug as cytotoxic when it is ___.
Choose one answer.
Cyto- refers to cells and -toxic to poison, so cytotoxic means damaging to cells. It is not limited to nerves, and cytotoxic drugs usually have side effects.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cytotoxic”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.