Chemotherapy is one of the treatment modalities that arrests growth of malignancy either by killing transformed cells or by arresting their division. Chemotherapy is often used either as adjuvant or neoadjuvant or in conjunction with radiotherapy and surgery. However, the major drawback of using such cancer therapeutics is that it may lead to transient and/or permanent damage to normal tissues due to their direct toxicity to healthy cells or toxicity mediated by signals generated by target cancer cells [1, 2]. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, inflammation of the intestinal and oral mucosa, loss of appetite, fatigue, anaemia, leukopenia, pain, and initiation of secondary neoplastic changes are some of the common symptoms of toxicities during cancer chemotherapy [3–6]. Generation of free radicals and initiation of uncoordinated inflammatory response are some of the principle mechanisms of toxicities derived from cancer chemotherapy or radiotherapy [7–10]. Bleomycin (BLM), a commonly used anticancer drug, has been reported to exert free radical mediated toxic effects in similar manner to that of ionized radiation (IR) . BLM induces DNA strand breaks, resulting in production of DNA adducts and excess reactive oxygen species (ROS) leading to oxidative stress, mitochondrial leakage, and apoptosis . Bleomycin at a concentration of 40 μg/mL can induce radiomimetic damage equal to 2 Gy of gamma radiation which is the standard fraction applied daily to cancer patients in fractionation regimes used in radiotherapy .