Comparative clinical pharmacology of cisplatin and carboplatin.

The platinum compounds cisplatin and carboplatin are active against a wide range of adult and pediatric malignancies. Whereas both exert their cytotoxic effect by incorporating into DNA, they have substantially different systemic and cellular pharmacology. In addition, their toxicity profiles are much different. Substantial interpatient pharmacokinetic variability and narrow therapeutic indexes of the two agents led to the development of several dosing strategies. Although these strategies reduce pharmacokinetic variability, their effect on improving patient outcome remains to be determined.