Fifteen samples from 11 patients suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL; 5 untreated, 6 chemotherapeutically treated) were analysed for their individual gene expression of the multidrug resistance (MDR) associated genes encoding mdr1/P-glycoprotein, mrp, and topoisomerase II alpha/beta-isoenzymes by a complementary DNA polymerase chain reaction (cDNA-PCR) approach. The expression of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (gapdh) served as standard. Thereby, we generally found high mdr1- and mrp-, but low topoisomerase II alpha-mRNA levels. While mdr1 levels of the CLL samples were mostly found to be in the range of values measured in the T-lymphoblastoid, P-glycoprotein MDR cell line CCRF VCR 100, mrp levels were usually found to be 2-4-fold higher compared therewith. This might represent a multifactorial MDR in CLL. In contrast to the low or even absent topoisomerase II alpha gene expression, however, the expression of the topoisomerase II beta gene was generally high in the CLL lymphocytes exceeding the value observed in the cell line CCRF VCR 100 up to 5-fold. mdr1 gene expression correlated significantly with mrp gene expression in samples from patients having received chemotherapy (rs = 0.5833, P < 0.05, n = 10). In two patients the follow-up analysis revealed combined increases in mdr1- and mrp-gene expression levels in the course of the disease.