A physiological model has been developed to describe the disposition of cis-dichlorodiammine-platinum(II) (DDP) following i.v. dosing in the female rat bearing the Walker 256 carcinoma. The model simulates concentrations of DDP and its mobile and fixed metabolites in plasma, liver, gut, skin, muscle, tumor, carcass, and kidney, and DDP and mobile metabolite excretion following a 4 mg/kg dose. In the kinetic model, DDP binds irreversibly to low MW nucleophiles and macromolecules (largely proteins) within the plasma and tissue compartments to form mobile and fixed metabolites, respectively. Reaction rates for the formation of each metabolite are tissue/organ specific. The rate constant for the biotransformation of DDP to fixed metabolite in plasma (k2P = 0.0082 min-1) was determined from in vitro incubation studies. This rate was used as the basis for estimating the biotransformation rate constants for DDP to fixed and mobile metabolites in other compartments. Both DDP and mobile metabolite are assumed to follow flow-limited transport, to freely traverse compartmental barriers, and to partition equally in all compartments. Both are excreted in the urine, the major route of Pt elimination. Urinary excretion is modeled as a linear process involving filtration only; an assumption based on a calculated renal clearance of 1.1 ml/min, a value very similar to the estimated GFR. Biliary excretion is a minor route of mobile metabolite elimination and is modeled as a linear process occurring in the liver. Four hours after dosing, approximately 60% of the administered Pt remains in the tissues and plasma. Of this, over 75% of the plasma Pt and 90% of the metal ion in every other compartment is fixed (protein bound). Fixed Pt can be eliminated from a compartment only after its biotransformation to mobile metabolite. In most compartments this rate of elimination corresponds closely to the average rate of protein turnover in that compartment.