Gas Therapy: An Emerging Green Strategy for Anticancer Therapeutics

As an emerging area, gas therapy has attracted more and more attention in treating many diseases including cancer. The fabrication of stimuli-responsive delivery systems with on-demand release behavior is very promising for precision gas therapy, which can obtain optimal therapeutic performance without gas poisoning risks. In this review, the authors introduce the recent progress in the preparation of different kinds of gas carriers for efficient delivery of gaseous molecules (NO, H2S, CO, O2). Particularly, in order to achieve targeted accumulation of gaseous molecules in tumor tissues, gaseous molecules-integrated nanoparticles were constructed. Most importantly, by combination of gas therapy with other therapeutic modalities such as chemotherapy, photodynamic therapy (PDT), and radiotherapy, various multifunctional nanocarriers have been designed for synergistic cancer therapy. Especially, the recent developments of multifunctional gas-carrying nanocarriers for synergistic cancer therapy are discussed in detail.