[Cisplatin or carboplatin, that is the question].

Platine-based chemotherapy agents are major drugs in oncology and are currently used in most solid malignancies. Of these, cisplatin has been the most widely used over past years. Its efficacy and toxicity have been both well documented in the literature. Carboplatin has a rather different toxicity profile and seems to be better tolerated than cisplatin. This might potentially impact on quality of life. Carboplatin has been assessed for treatment of most malignancies in which cisplatin has demonstrated its efficacy. This paper aims at reviewing and comparing the current indications in terms of efficacy and toxicity of cisplatin and carboplatin. Although cisplatin has demonstrated its superiority over carboplatin for treatment of lung cancers and germ-cell tumors, the tolerance of carboplatin is better than that of cisplatin. This might be taken into account for patients treated with non-curative attempt. Further studies should compare both chemotherapy agents for quality of life. Of course, carboplatin remains widely used for patients who are contra-indicated for cisplatin.

铂类化疗药物是肿瘤学中的主要药物，目前用于大多数实体恶性肿瘤。其中，顺铂在过去多年中应用最为广泛。其疗效和毒性在文献中都有详尽记载。卡铂的毒性特征有很大不同，似乎比顺铂耐受性更好。这可能会对生活质量产生潜在影响。卡铂已被用于评估治疗大多数顺铂已显示出疗效的恶性肿瘤。本文旨在回顾和比较顺铂和卡铂在疗效和毒性方面的当前适应证。尽管顺铂在肺癌和生殖细胞肿瘤的治疗中已显示出优于卡铂，但卡铂的耐受性优于顺铂。对于非根治性治疗的患者，这可能需要考虑。进一步的研究应该比较这两种化疗药物对生活质量的影响。当然，对于顺铂有禁忌证的患者，卡铂仍然被广泛使用。