Gold - Old Drug With New Potentials.

This article reviews the most important applications of gold products in the different fields of human pathology. Au(I) and Au(III) compounds have been re-introduced in clinical practice for targeting the cellular components involved in the onset and progression of viral and parasitic diseases, rheumatoid arthritis and cancer. This review, after some brief historical notes, takes into account the applications of gold compounds against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and also in tuberculosis and in rheumatoid arthritis treatment. The use of gold containing drugs in the cure of cancer are then considered, with special emphasis to the use of nanoparticles and to the photo-thermal cancer therapy. The use of colloidal gold in diagnostics, introduced in the last decade is widely discussed. As a last point a survey on the adverse effects and on the toxicity of the various gold derivatives in use in medicine is presented. PMID: 28359231 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Current Medicinal Chemistry - Category: Chemistry Authors: Tags: Curr Med Chem Source Type: research