Recent strategies for the treatment of multi-drug resistance in cancer cells

The multi-drug resistance (MDR) phenotype is defined as a cross-resistance to a wide range of structurally and mechanistically diverse anticancer agents. The emergence of the MDR phenotype in tumours seriously affects the outcome of cancer chemotherapy, and thus the development of strategies to overcome MDR in cancer cells becomes essential and of current demand. This review focuses on patents published in 1996 - 1997 detailing MDR modulators and alternative approaches to the treatment of MDR tumours.