ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines how drug resistance through drug inactivation, drug target alteration, drug efflux, deoxyribonucleic acid damage repair, and apoptosis inhibition develops in cancer in response to current treatments. Nanoparticles/nanomedicines are being extensively explored for their use in the treatment of cancer. A variety of nanotechnology-based drug carriers, which come from various classes based on their nature, have been investigated for chemotherapeutic delivery in multidrug resistant (MDR) cancer. The chronological development and eventual success of cancer chemotherapeutics based on nanotechnology is, however, dependent upon a number of parameters. Resistance to chemotherapeutics can be categorized into two broad classes: those intrinsically resistant to chemotherapy and tumors that acquire resistance to chemotherapy. Acquired or induced drug resistance is seen initially in responsive tumors, which over the course of time no longer respond to the chemotherapeutics to which they were initially sensitive. Peptides can be used to reverse the effect of P-glycoprotein in MDR cancer.
