Platinum drug hypersensitivity

Mechanisms and Diagnosis of Platinum Drug-Induced Hypersensitivity Reactions... 

Anaphylactic responses have been reported in 10 to 30% of patients treated with the pladnum complexes. Symptoms, including facial edema, bronchoconstric-tion, hypotension, and tachycardia, occur within minutes of drug administration in padents previously exposed to the pladnum complexes. The incidence of hypersensitivity increases with increasing courses of platinum therapy. There appears to be cross-reactivity among the platinum complexes in that padents reactive to cispladn have a much higher incidence of hypersensitivity to carboplatin than do previously non-treated padents. 

Exposure to platinum salts, especially in miners and other industrial workers, has been known to provoke hypersensitivity reactions since, at least, the 1940s while reactions to platinum therapeutic agents, viz. cisplatin, were first described in the 1970s. Symptoms to the drugs may develop during infusion within minutes or after hours or... 

Skin testing with the three platinum drags has been employed to identify at-risk patients and predict platinum hypersensitivity. As yet, skin testing with the drugs has not found widespread acceptance and application as a routine diagnostic procedure. 

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