A chemical perspective on the clinical use of platinum-based anticancer drugs.

Platinum drugs have been a mainstay of cancer chemotherapy since the introduction of cisplatin in the 1970s. Since then, carboplatin and oxaliplatin have been approved world-wide and nedaplatin, lobaplatin, heptaplatin, dicycloplatin, and miriplatin have been approved in individual countries. The three main platinum drugs are not used in isolation but are combined in chemotherapy protocols from a range of 28 drugs that include: anthracyclines, alkylating agents, vinca alkaloids, antimetabolites, topoisomerase inhibitors, taxanes, and monoclonal antibodies.