Multidrug Resistance of Gastric Cancer: The Mechanisms and Chinese Medicine Reversal Agents

• Main Authors: Huang WJ, Ruan S, Wen F, Lu XN, Gu SP, Chen XX, Liu M, Shu P
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dove Medical Press 2020-12-01
• Series: Cancer Management and Research
• Subjects: gastric cancer; multidrug resistance (mdr); mechanisms; traditional chinese medicine (tcm); review
• Online Access: https://www.dovepress.com/multidrug-resistance-of-gastric-cancer-the-mechanisms-and-chinese-medi-peer-reviewed-article-CMAR

Wen-Jie Huang,1,* Shuai Ruan,1,* Fang Wen,2 Xiao-na Lu,1 Su-ping Gu,2 Xiao-xue Chen,1 Miao Liu,3 Peng Shu1 1Oncology Department, Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China; 2First College of Clinical Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Peng ShuOncology Department, Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, 155 Hanzhong Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail [e-mail] LiuDepartment of Pathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA,  USAEmail [e-mail]: Chemotherapy is the main clinical treatment method of gastric cancer. Multidrug resistance (MDR) has become a common phenomenon with the development of tumors, which alleviates the effect of chemotherapy and makes it difficult to break the bottleneck of survival rate of advanced gastric cancer. Therefore, the exploration of MDR reversal agents for gastric cancer is the focus and also the difficulty of current treatment. Currently, the researches on the mechanisms of drug resistance in gastric cancer have been continuously deepened, which reveal different pathways and targets of MDR, laying a solid foundation for studying reversal agents. As a kind of natural medicine, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) owns the characteristics of low toxicity, high safety and effectiveness. It can inhibit the occurrence, growth and metastasis of tumors, and reverse MDR via multiple pathways and mechanisms, the pathological function of which has become a research hotspot in recent years. TCM reversers are mainly divided into Chinese medicine monomers, Chinese patent medicines, and Chinese herbal compounds. With certain quantity and advantage, TCM reversers for MDR play an important role in the clinical treatment and show great potential in gastric cancer.Keywords: gastric cancer, multidrug resistance, MDR, mechanisms, traditional Chinese medicine, TCM, review