Cisplatin is a "first generation" antitumor drug highly effective in the chemotherapy of many forms of cancer. Thge metallodrug is most commonly used to treat testicular, bladder, lung, gullet (oesophagus), stomach and ovarian cancers. The water-soluble platinum complex, after hydrolysis, reacts with the nucleic acid bases of DNA to produce both intra and interstrand crosslinks. These crosslinks appear to impair replication and transcription of DNA. The cytotoxicity of cisplatin correlates with cellular arrest in the G2 phase of the cell cycle.
IUPAC name: cis-diamminedichloroplatinum(II).
