Drug Resistance in Cancer

Cancer drug resistance is one of the obstacles in cancer treatment thus leading cause of death in cancer. Drug resistance in cancer means the evolution of tumor cells against therapeutic strategies. In each kind of resistance, every time there is a different pattern of resistivity. Two basic modes of resistance are found in the neoplastic cells that can be inherent or acquired. A large number of factors are influencing these two modes including mutations, efflux and influx variations, tumor cell heterogeneity, microenvironment of the cancer stem cells, microRNAs, long non-coding regions of RNAs, apoptotic failure, and many others. Evolution in tumor cells may be a result of increased ability of DNA repair, alteration in target molecules, involvement of kinase inhibitor, or topoisomerase inhibitors inactivity. It is the need of the hour to utilize other fields of science to avoid cancer drug resistance. Advanced knowledge of bioinformatics, genomics, proteomics, and nanotechnology is the way forward. Drugs with increased efficacy, decreased efflux pumps,high specificity, and targeted effects are required to be developed. Nanocarriers can play a role to avoid cancer drug resistance. Nano dosage of cancer drugs can prove more specific, lesstoxic, and can increase therapeutic effects.