内容提要: |
Drug resistance has been one of the hindrances to the progress of cancer treatment. The irresponsiveness to chemotherapies at a later stage of treatment leads to poor prognosis. To study the methods combating resistance, NSCLC has been used frequently as a model. Looking into the resistance mechanism in the standard and relatively efficient EGFR-TKIs in lung cancer offers the opportunity to develop second-generation TKIs to improve drug concentrations during treatment. Moreover, the emerging evidence of CSCs and miRNA pathways provide other novel molecular targets for postponing resistance onset. Although at preliminary research stage, CSCs and miRNAs are potential powerful targets to efficiently combat resistance in that they are both involved in several aspects of cancer-cell development. Besides the hope to develop novel drugs through these targets, an alternative idea is to develop efficient drug delivery systems, which can both maintain blood drug concentration, especially within tumor cells, and at the same time initiate apoptosis. However, as discussed above, combating drug resistance is not only an issue in cancers. Although the mechanisms have been studied for decades, individual diseases have specific mechanisms to be elucidated. Maintaining drug concentration through either novel targets or novel delivery strategies, and stimulating the internal apoptosis signaling through immunity onset, remain the two most focused aims to delay resistance and prolong therapeutic effects. |