Chemotherapy is one of the major treatment options for cancer patients; however, the efficacy of chemotherapeutic management of cancer is severely limited by multidrug resistance, in that cancer cells become simultaneously resistant to many structurally and mechanistically unrelated drugs. In the past three decades, a number of mechanisms by which cancer cells acquire multidrug resistance have been discovered. In addition, the development of agents or strategies to overcome resistance has been the subject of intense study. This book contains comprehensive and up-to-date reviews of multidrug resistance mechanisms, from over-expression of ATP-binding cassette drug transporters such as P-glycoprotein, multidrug resistance-associated proteins, and breast cancer resistance p- tein to the drug ratio-dependent antagonism and the paradigm of cancer stem cells. The book also includes strategies to overcome multidrug resistance, from the development of compounds that inhibit drug transporter function to the modulation of transporter expression. In addition, this book contains techniques for the detection and imaging of drug transporters, methods for the investigation of drug resistance in animal models, and strategies to evaluate the efficacy of resistance reversal agents. The book intends to provide a state-of-the-art collection of reviews and methods for both basic and clinician investigators who are interested in cancer multidrug resistance mechanisms and reversal strategies. Tianjin, China Jun Zhou v Contents Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix 1 Multidrug Resistance in Cancer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Bruce C. Baguley 2 Multidrug Resistance in Oncology and Beyond: From Imaging of Drug Efflux Pumps to Cellular Drug Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Amazing anticancer therapy advancements have been made in the last decade due to tremendous innovations. Nonetheless, drug resistance remains a major challenge that limits the effectiveness of anticancer therapies, causing cancer recurrence and metastasis and being a major cause of cancer-related death. Drug resistance can be caused by complex molecular mechanisms such as gene mutations, epigenetic dysregulation, microenvironment alterations, etc. Many clinical strategies, including combination therapies and epigenetic drugs, have been used to avoid or reverse drug resistance effectively. However, the progression of cancers (in patients under treatment) or the lack of response of cancer patients indicate that current approaches to overcome resistance are far from sufficient, and more work is needed.

Nano Drug Delivery Strategies for the Treatment of Cancers discusses several current and promising approaches for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer by using the most recent developments in nanomedical technologies. The book presents introductory information about the biology of different types of cancer in order to provide the reader with knowledge on their specificities. In addition, it discusses various novel drug delivery systems, detailing their functionalities, expected outcomes and future developments in the field, focusing on brain, mouth and throat, breast, lung, liver, pancreas, stomach, colon, bool, skin and prostate cancers. The book is a valuable source for cancer researchers, oncologists, pharmacologists and nanotechnologists who are interested in novel drug delivery systems and devices for treatment of various types of cancer that take advantage of recent advances in this exciting field. - Discusses a wide range of promising approaches for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer using the latest advancement in cutting-edge nanomedical technologies - Provides foundational information on different types of cancer and their biology to help the reader choose the best nano drug delivery system for patients - Presents novel drug delivery systems based on nanoparticles, microparticles, liposomes, self-assembling Micelles and block copolymer micelles

The last ten years have seen the publication of a vast amount of data regarding cellular resistance to drugs in cancer cells. Recent studies have demonstrated that drug resistance assays appear to be predictive of clinical response and suggest that clinicians should now be considering the potential applications of these assays in the treatment of patients with hematological neoplasms. This collection of papers from the International Symposium on the Clinical Value of Drug Resistance Assays in Leukemia and Lymphoma, Amsterdam, 1992, provides a state-of-the-art discussion on drug resistance assays and their role in the design and individualization of treatment protocols.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Natural Products for Cancer Prevention and Therapy" that was published in Nutrients

Despite the significant advances in cancer therapy made through constant evaluation and analysis of treatment aftereffects, the disease still remains one of the foremost causes of mortality worldwide killing more than 12 million people annually. The prime reason behind the failure of conventional chemotherapeutics which are used as the chief regimen in the comprehensive treatment of cancers is the development of chemoresistance. It can be either intrinsic or acquired and is primarily mediated via different key regulators like MDR, MAPK, NF-κB, PI3K/Akt, Wnt signaling pathways etc. Thus, agents which can target these regulatory elements or pathways and in turn sensitize cancer cells to chemotherapy holds immense prospect. However, there is barely such comprehensive work available in scientific literature that explains how chemosensitization of cancer cells functions using different drug combinations and exhibit synergism. This book provides a detailed description of chemoresistance and chemosensitization, targets for chemosensitization and various approaches adapted in the process of chemosensitization. Furthermore, the book explicates the role of various chemosensitizers, both natural and synthetic in sensitizing cancer cells and also details the current research findings on chemosensitization of different cancer types in both pre-clinical and clinical settings.