Abstract: Necroptosis is a caspase-independent， regulable programmed cell death pathway， which possesses the same morphological characteristics of necrosis and similar molecular biological characteristics with apoptosis. Currently， the main obstacle in chemotherapy is drug resistance of tumor cells， mainly due to multidrug resistance mediated by high expression of ATP-dependent drug transporters and the blockade of apoptosis pathway. Thus， the induction of necroptosis may act as a potentially powerful weapon to reverse a variety of tumor resistance. This review includes three parts： necroptosis， its relation with apoptosis and autophagy， drug resistance mechanism of tumor cells and recent advances in the induction of necroptosis.