Anticancer platinum-based complexes with non-classical structures

Although classical platinum drugs such as cisplatin, carboplatin and oxaliplatin play a vitally important role in cancer treatment, nonselective distribution of platinum drugs in normal and tumor cells can induce serious gastrointestinal reaction, nephrotoxicity, ototoxicity, neurotoxicity and cross resistance, limiting their applications. Over the past few years, a great number of platinum complexes of non-classical structures have been extensively investigated and evaluated in vitro and in vivo, some of them exhibiting considerable activity. In this review, platinum-based complexes with non-classical structures which have anticancer potential are described and several representative examples are discussed with their mechanism of action.