The anti-cancer properties and clinical usefulness of cisplatin and its derivatives indicated a need of searching for other metal complexes of similar activities. Anti-cancer activity was proved for complexes of titanium (IV), germanium (IV), gallium (III), ruthenium (III), palladium (II) and tin (IV). Only the first three of them favourably passed I/II phase of clinical trials.

In this article the actual state of knowledge about mechanisms of activity of several titanium, germanium and gallium complexes, profiles of their anti-cancer activity observed in in vivo and in vitro laboratory investigations as well as conducted clinical trials are presented.