Recent insights into platinum drug resistance in cancer

Cisplatin and its analogs have become important components of chemotherapeutic regimens for the treatment of solid tumors, however, their overall effectiveness is limited by the emergence of drug-resistant tumor cells. Resistance to the platinum drugs is multifactorial consisting of mechanisms that prevent the formation of lethal platinum-DNA adducts and mechanisms that operate downstream of the drug/target interaction to promote cell survival. Continued progress in the study of the drug resistance phenotype as well as the development of new platinum analogs may eventually lead to improved therapies and increased survival rates.