Towards the Elucidation of the Activation of Cisplatin in Anticancer Treatment

The first step in biological activity of cisplatin, one of the most efficient anticancer drugs, involves the hydration process. This chapter reviews the results of theoretical studies concerning the activation of cisplatin and its analogs. The complexity of the studied phenomena requires application of different theoretical tools. The energetic description of the extended hydration scheme was performed for the square-planar Pt(II) and Pd(II) complexes. High-accuracy methodology was adopted for the predictions of their heats of reactions. Molecular mechanism of the ligand replacement by