A new light-activated platinum-based compound that is up to 80 times more powerful than other platinum-based anti-cancer drugs and which can use "light activation" to kill cancer cells in much more targeted way than similar treatments - has been discovered by researchers from the Universities of Warwick, Edinburgh, Dundee and the Czech Republic's Institute of Biophysics.

The platinum-based compound known as "trans, trans, trans- [Pt(N3)2(OH)2(NH3)(py)]", or a light activated PtIV complex, is highly stable and non-toxic if left in the dark but if light falls upon it becomes much less stable and highly toxic to cancer cells.

In fact it is between 13 and 80 times more toxic (depending on how and on which cells it is used) to cancer cells than the current platinum based anti-cancer drug Cisplatin. Moreover it kills the cells by a different mechanism of action, so it can also kill cisplatin-resistant cells.

The said compound could be used in particular to treat surface cancers wherein patients could be treated in a darkened environment with light directed specifically at cancer cells containing the compound activating the compound's toxicity and killing those cells.

Normal cells exposed to the compound would be protected by keeping the patient in darkness until the compound has passed through and out of the patient.

The new light activated PtIV complex is also more efficient in its toxic action on cancer cells in that, unlike other compounds currently used in photodynamic therapy, it does not require the presence of significant amounts of oxygen within a cancer cell to become toxic.

Cancer cells tend to have less oxygen present than normal cells.

Although the research on this new light-activated platinum complex is in its earliest stages, the researches are hopeful that, in a few years time, the new platinum compound could be used in a new type of photoactivated chemotherapy for cancer.

Find more details from University of Warwick.