Recent developments in overcoming tumour cell multi-drug resistance

The development of unspecific mechanisms of resistance remains a serious impediment to cancer chemotherapy. The term multi-drug resistance (MDR) is defined as resistance of cancer cells to a broad variety of structurally and functionally diverse chemotherapeutic drugs. On the cellular level, several mechanisms responsible for MDR have been identified. In addition, numerous approaches for overcoming tumour cell MDR have been reported in the literature. This review focuses on patents published in 1995 and 1996 on modulators of MDR and related approaches to therapy of multi-drug resistant tumours.