Introduction

An interesting area of research in bioinorganic chemistry is medicinal inorganic chemistry that encompasses the utility of inorganic metal ions for the design of therapeutic and diagnostic agents that are necessary to detect or treat many chronic diseases, in particular cancers. Cancer is a complex disease, the main cause of man’s morbidity and mortality globally where uncontrolled proliferation of cells takes place to form masses known as tumors. The treatment strategies to combat this deadly disease are diverse, with chemotherapy and radiotherapy remaining as a mainstay primary treatment option. While chemotherapeutic agents are organic based, metal-based therapeutic agents offer promising opportunities due to their appealing physico-chemical, optical, and biological properties. Besides, third transition series (3d)-metal-based chemotherapeutics are biocompatible in nature and together with naturally occurring or synthetic ligand frameworks constitute a synergic active drug conjugate that specifically interacts with the binding domain of target biomacromolecules. We have presented herein an overview of chemotherapeutic intervention using 3d metal ions highlighting their structure-activity relationship and their cytotoxicity profile.