Tumor immunotherapy is only effective in a fraction of patients due to a low response rate and severe side effects, and these challenges of
immunotherapy in clinics can be addressed through induction of immunogenic cell death (ICD). ICD is elicited from many antitumor
therapies to release danger associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) and
tumor-associated
antigens to facilitate maturation of dendritic cells (DCs) and infiltration of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs). The process can reverse the
tumor immunosuppressive microenvironment to improve the sensitivity of
immunotherapy. Nanostructure-based drug delivery systems (
NDDSs) are explored to induce ICD by incorporating therapeutic molecules for
chemotherapy,
photosensitizers (PSs) for
photodynamic therapy (
PDT), photothermal conversion agents for
photothermal therapy (PTT), and radiosensitizers for
radiotherapy (RT). These
NDDSs can release loaded agents at a right dose in the right place at the right time, resulting in greater effectiveness and lower toxicity. Immunotherapeutic agents can also be combined with these
NDDSs to achieve the synergic antitumor effect in a multi-modality therapeutic approach. In this review,
NDDSs are harnessed to load multiple agents to induce ICD by
chemotherapy,
PDT, PTT, and RT in combination of
immunotherapy to promote the
therapeutic effect and reduce side effects associated with
cancer treatment.