Posted by Cancer is a complex disease characterized by systemic dysfunction, necessitating a balance between therapeutic efficacy and safety. Immunotherapy is a core treatment approach for activating the antitumor immune response in the human body. The development of intelligent hydrogels has provided an innovative platform for tumor immunotherapy, owing to their adjustable properties for controlled drug delivery and immune modulation. Tumor immunotherapy has achieved remarkable success in recent years. However, it continues to face critical challenges such as targeting and delivery barriers, suppression by the TME, and immune evasion and drug resistance. In response, as injectable or implantable biomaterials, hydrogels are emerging as a promising platform to address these limitations by enabling localized, controllable drug delivery and immunomodulation. This review systematically categorizes contemporary hydrogel construction strategies tailored for immunotherapy, highlighting the distinct advantages of specific architectures in diverse clinical contexts. By classifying hydrogel applications according to immune-based strategies, the work underscores their multifunctional utility as precision delivery platforms and modulators of the immune microenvironment.
The α-cyclodextrin/PEG (α-CD/PEG) host–guest combination represents the most widely adopted system in tumor immunotherapy hydrogels. Its core advantage lies in its combination of PEG’s inherent biocompatibility with α-CD’s dynamic reversible crosslinking capability, which collectively enable the hydrogel to achieve three critical functional properties: injectability, self-healing characteristics, and sustained release profiles.
The β-CD/ferrocene and α-CD/cationic polymer host–guest system has demonstrated unique advantages in tumor immunotherapy.
X. Chen, S. Wu, Y. Zhang, et al. “ Hydrogels for Cancer Immunotherapy: Strategies From Construction to Application.” MedComm 7, no. 2 (2026): e70615. https://doi.org/10.1002/mco2.70615