Antitumor applications of nanotraditional Chinese medicine

An article by Deng et al. [1] that was first published in ACS Nano in 2019 revealed that nanoparticles extracted from cuttlefish ink (CINPs) could inhibit tumor growth by synergizing immunotherapy and photothermal therapy. The researchers found that these CINPs, which had significant antitumor efficacy, could effectively reprogram tumorassociated macrophages (TAMs) from the immunesuppressive M2like phenotype to the antitumor M1like phenotype. There were reportedly approximately 18.1 million new cancer cases and 9.6 million cancerrelated deaths in 2018 worldwide [2]. As of 2015, the mortality rate from malignant tumors accounted for 23.91% of all causes of death in China, and this rate is still on the rise [3]. The pathogenesis of human tumors is the result of multiple factors jointly influencing gene expression, which implies that these tumors have low controllability. Hence, it is a topic of wide concern in clinical settings.