Palladium complexes: new candidates for anti-cancer drugs

Platinum complexes which are most studied metal complexes due to their importance as adjuvant therapy of cancers aiming to induce tumor-cell-death. Some of the platinum-based antitumor drugs like cisplatin, carboplatin and oxaliplatin, have several disadvantages including side effects, cisplatin-resistant tumors, limited solubility in aqueous media, and so on. Thus, to achieve lower undesirable toxicity, enhanced solubility, and tumor selectivity, significant amount of work have been devoted to the preparation of modified platinum complexes. One of the ways to design the new anti-tumor agents related to cisplatin is to change the nature of central metal ion. Among the non-platinum metal complexes studied for cancer treatment, palladium(II) derivatives were readily chosen due to their structural analogy with those containing Pt(II) complexes. This review focuses on anti-tumor property of Pd(II) complexes and makes comparisons with similar property of cisplatin. Then, in the review, palladium(II) complexes have been classified according to their leaving ligands into palladium(II) complexes. In the last part, the most important factors affecting on the anti-tumor activity of the Pd(II) complexes were discussed. These factors are encouraging more researches in this field, for future applications.