铁茂是目前在有机和生物无机药物中最常使用的有机金属基团，用于治疗癌症和其他各种疾病。在几项开创性研究之后，1996年和1997年出现了两次真正的突破。1996年，Jaouen等人报道了铁茂酮，即与促性腺激素依赖性乳腺癌的化学治疗药物双氧克星相似的铁茂醇类似物。目前已有几种铁茂酮处于临床前评估阶段。1997年，Biot-Brocard团队报道了铁喹诺酮，即将重氯酮抗疟药中的一个铁茂基团引入碳链后得到的类似物，其对氯喹敏感和氯喹耐药品系的恶性疟原虫都具有活性。2019年，铁喹诺酮与阿泰肺酮的联合组合完成了IIb临床评估。已有1000多项关于含铁茂的药物对传染性疾病的研究发表，包括寄生虫、细菌、真菌和病毒感染，但结构与生物活性之间的关系鲜有研究，不像铁茂酮和铁喹诺酮。然而，在大多数含铁茂的药物中，通过费托催化产生的反应性氧自由基（ROS），特别是氢氧自由基（OH·），起着关键作用，并在本综述中进行了详细讨论，同时还介绍了利用胶束、金属有机框架（MOFs）、聚合物和树状分子等药物递送纳米系统的超分子方法。

Ferrocene has been the most used organometallic moiety introduced in organic and bioinorganic drugs to cure cancers and various other diseases. Following several pioneering studies, two real breakthroughs occurred in 1996 and 1997. In 1996, Jaouen et al. reported ferrocifens, ferrocene analogs of tamoxifen, the chemotherapeutic for hormone-dependent breast cancer. Several ferrocifens are now in preclinical evaluation. Independently, in 1997, ferroquine, an analog of the antimalarial drug chloroquine upon the introduction of a ferrocenyl substituent in the carbon chain, was reported by the Biot-Brocard group and found to be active against both chloroquine-sensitive and chloroquine-resistant strains of Plasmodium falciparum. Ferroquine, in combination with artefenomel, completed phase IIb clinical evaluation in 2019. More than 1000 studies have been published on ferrocenyl-containing pharmacophores against infectious diseases, including parasitic, bacterial, fungal, and viral infections, but the relationship between structure and biological activity has been scarcely demonstrated, unlike for ferrocifens and ferroquines. In a majority of ferrocene-containing drugs, however, the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), in particular the OH. radical, produced by Fenton catalysis, plays a key role and is scrutinized in this mini-review, together with the supramolecular approach utilizing drug delivery nanosystems, such as micelles, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), polymers, and dendrimers.