Noble metal-dithiocarbamates: precious allies in the fight against cancer

To date, cisplatin and its analogues are among the most effective chemotherapeutic agents for cancer treatment. However, high systemic toxicity and the propensity for patients to develop tumor resistance remain the main challenges in the clinical application. Therefore, the discovery and development of novel active chemotherapeutic agents is largely needed and the research of new metal-based anticancer drugs continues to be a very active international field. In this review paper we aim to give a detailed overview on our research work devoted to the design of novel dithiocarbamato complexes with different noble metals (such as palladium, platinum, copper, ruthenium and gold), which have gained considerable interest in both the development and the treatment of cancer. In particular, we summarize the results of the metal complexes achieved so far, focusing on the gold(III) compounds, that show outstanding in vitro and in vivo antitumor properties and reduced, or even no, systemic and renal toxicity, compared to the reference drug cisplatin.