Anticancer: A pharmaceutical used to prevent the initiation or spread of cancer. Defining an anticancer pharmaceutical as one used in cancer treatment is falsely general. For example, when morphine is administered to a cancer patient, the morphine is administered as an analgesic (pain can be a symptom of cancer) but not to treat the cancer itself. The term "anticancer" itself is imprecise because cancer is not just one disease, and has many manifestations and symptoms.

Taxol (paclitaxel), an anticancer pharmaceutical that works by inhibiting cell mitosis.

Tamoxifen, an anticancer pharmaceutical that works as an estrogen receptor antagonist. Tamoxifen is a prodrug.