Summary In phase I studies. lobaplatin showed activity in ovarian cancer patients pretreated with platinum. A phase II trial with lobaplatin was performed in patients with refractory or relapsed ovarian cancer to define activity and pharmacokinetics. Twenty-two patients were treated with lobaplatin administered as an intravenous bolus every 4 weeks. Dependent on creatinine clearance (CRCL) patients received 30 or 50 mgm-2 lobaplatin as the starting dose. Twenty-two patients received 78 courses (median 3, range 1-6). In eight patients total platinum (TPt) in plasma and urine, free platinum (FPt) in plasma ultrafiltrate (both measured by atomic absorption spectrometry) and lobaplatin in plasma ultrafiltrate measured (by high-performance liquid chromatography) were measured. Toxicity was confined to mild nausea and vomiting, mild leucocytopenia (WHO grade 3 in 18% of the courses), and renal function-related thrombocytopenia (WHO grade 3 4 in 53% of the courses). A correlation was found between CRCL and reduction in platelet count (r = -0.77; P<0.0l). No renal toxicity was encountered. Five of 21 evaluable patients (24%) achieved a response (four complete remissions and one partial remission). Remissions occurred mainly in patients who relapsed more than 6 months after primary treatment. The median survival from start of lobaplatin treatment was 8 months. The mean areas under the curve (AUCs) were 4.2 ± 0.5, 3.0 ± 0.6. and 3.2 ± 1.1 h mgl-' for TPt, FPt and lobaplatin respectively. The free platinum fraction (FPt TPt) was initially very high, indicating low protein binding. FPt was essentially present as intact lobaplatin. Four hours after infusion 54 ± 5% and 24 h after infusion 74 ± 3% of the lobaplatin dose was excreted in the urine. In conclusion. lobaplatin is a platinum compound with anti-tumour activity in patients with relapsed ovarian cancer, especially in those who have platinum-sensitive tumours. The main toxicity of lobaplatin is thrombocytopenia and its dose should be corrected according to renal function.Keyword: ovarian cancer; phase II; lobaplatin Over the last decade, treatment of patients with ovarian cancer has been dominated by cisplatin-containing regimens (Neijt et al., 1984;Williams et al., 1985; Omura et al., 1986). Combinations of cisplatin with one single alkylating agent give equivalent results to three-or four-drug schedules, but appear to be less toxic (Neijt et al., 1987). In recent years, the development of new drugs has been directed towards the development of platinum analogues that are equipotent but less toxic than the parent compound. Carboplatin has emerged as leading analogue in this respe-t with reduced nephrotoxicity, gastointestinal toxicity and neurotoxicity (Calvert et al., 1982;Evans et al., 1983). Myelotoxicity, especially thrombocytopenia. has been found to be the doselimiting toxicity of carboplatin. Especially in ovarian cancer, carboplatin appears to have equivalent activity to cisplatin (Alberts et al., 1992;Swenerton et al., 1992).An important direction in current r...