While many examples of osmium complexes, as anti-cancer agents, have been reported and some reviews have been devoted to this topic, a particularly interesting and synthetically accessible sub-class of these compounds namely those bearing a π– bound arene and phosphane co-ligand have escaped review. These complexes have made a surprisingly late entry in the literature (2005) in terms of anti-cancer investigations. This is somewhat surprising considering the plethora of analogous complexes that have been reported for the lighter analogue, ruthenium. Herein we review all complexes, neutral and ionic, bearing the “(ƞ⁶-arene)Os(PR₃)” moiety focusing on their synthesis, reactivity, structural features (by X-ray diffraction analysis) as well as anti-cancer biological activity. An attempt is made throughout the article to contrast these to each other and to analogous Ru systems, and a full summary of all existing in vitro biological data is presented.

尽管已报道了许多作为抗癌剂的complex配合物实例，并且对此主题进行了一些评论，但这些化合物中一个特别有趣且可合成的亚类，即带有π键结合的芳烃和膦共配体逃脱了审查。就抗癌研究而言，这些复合物在文献（2005年）中出人意料地迟了。考虑到已经报道了较轻的类似物钌的大量类似物，这有点令人惊讶。在此我们审查所有络合物，中性和离子，印有“（ƞ ⁶ -arene）OS（PR ₃”部分重点研究其合成，反应性，结构特征（通过X射线衍射分析）以及抗癌生物活性。整篇文章都尝试将它们相互比较以及与类似的Ru系统进行对比，并提供了所有现有体外生物学数据的完整摘要。