The Mechanism and New Approach on Drug Resistance of Cancer Cells : Proceedings of the International Symposium, Sapporo, Japan, 15-17 October 1992

One of the most important problems of cancer treatment today is the drug resistance of various cancer cells.

Although the first course of chemotherapy may destroy most of the cancer cells, a few resistance cells may survive and proliferate.

In some patients, despite more aggressive second and third courses of chemotherapy, the remaining resistant cells may regrow and ultimately kill the patient.

Though the problem of drug resistance in clinical settings is complex, considerable progress has been achieved in the field of basic research by molecular, biological, and biochemical approaches, thus clarifying the mechanisms of pleiotropic drug resistance.

These findings in clinical cancer chemotherapy can be utilized to overcome the drug resistance of cancer cells, and subsequently cure cancer patients.

Several problems remain that should be analyzed and resolved in the near future.

The results presented in this proceedings volume clearly enhance our knowledge of the mechanism of drug resistance in cancer cells. In recent years, the progress which has been made in the field of cancer chemotherapy has been remarkable, but various questions still have to be solved before a complete cure can be achieved with chemotherapy.

New therapeutic approaches targeting drug resistance mechanisms have been studied in the clinical field of cancer chemotherapy and this book further contributes to the progress in clinical research on the circumvention of drug resistance.

Such progress suggests that the complete response rates of cancer patients will be significantly raised in the near future.