Chemotherapeutic agents, reproductive

SAFETY PROFILE Confirmed carcinogen with experimental carcinogenic, neoplastigenic, tumorigenic, and teratogenic data. Poison by an unspecified route. Moderately toxic by ingestion, subcutaneous, intravenous, and intraperitoneal routes. Experimental reproductive effects. Mutation data reported. When heated to decomposition it emits ver " toxic fumes of NOx and HCl. Used as a chemotherapeutic agent. 

The South American form of trypanosomiasis is due to the parasite T, cruzi and is responsible for Chagas disease, which afflicts up to twenty million people and for which there is no known effective therapy. The status of chemotherapeutic agents has been reviewed [100]. The ethidium tetrachloroplatinate complex mentioned above has curative activity in mice, probably for the same reasons as in T, rhodesiense — increased dose due to less toxicity [101]. Early reports of the ability of cisplatin to inhibit infectivity were not substantiated [102] and are incorrect [103]. A survey of metal complexes for in vitro activity showed some complexes with positive results [104] and the mode of interaction studied [105]. The ability to inhibit motility does not, however, imply ability to stop reproduction. Indeed, a general problem with parasites is that, although bloodstream forms are more easily studied, the reproductive forms are intracellular. 

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