Understanding anticancer drug resistance: opportunities for modulation and impact on new drug design.

As our understanding of the mechanisms of cytotoxic drug resistance improves, it becomes feasible to circumvent this resistance through the rational design of non cross-resistant analogues or modulation of existing agents. Although this knowledge has yet to make a major impact on the success of cancer therapy, there are good reasons to be optimistic that this increased knowledge will be translated into more effective therapy in the future.