RESUMO
Multidrug resistance (MDR) is the main reason for the failure of cancer chemotherapy and also has long plagued the tumor therapy in clinic. The formation of MDR is a complex process with multi gene, multi factor, multi levels, multi structure, and multi steps. To overcome the MDR in tumor cells and improve the curative effect of anticancer drug have become the focus and key topic in tumor research. Nowadays most Western medicine reversal agents only aim at single resistance mechanism and reversal, but they have many adverse reactions which restrict the clinical use. The treatment of malignant tumor with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has its unique advantages and gratifying achievements in clinic, more and more anticancer drugs of Chinese materia medica (CMM) are being excavated, studied, and used. CMM used for the treatment of the disease with the properties of multi-channel, multi link, multi targeted effect, could significantly improve the chemotherapy drugs on tumor cytotoxicity. Many scholars are devoted to TCM reversing MDR in cancer. This paper discusses the mechanism of MDR; The studies on the reversal of MDR of tumor with CMM are reviewed in this paper.