Immunotherapy has emerged as a promising
cancer treatment modality. Despite the rapid progress in
cancer immunotherapy, the therapeutic efficiency and clinical translation of
immunotherapy are not as satisfactory as expected, especially for the patients with immune-cold
tumors. Immunogenic cell death (ICD) represents a particular form of
tumor cell death accompanied by the production of
tumor-specific
antigens, which facilitates the infiltration of effector T cells and potentiates immune response in solid
tumors. Thus, ICD contributes to stimulating immune-cold
tumors to immune-hot ones. Increasing evidence shows that
photodynamic therapy (
PDT) is able to effectively induce ICD. Recently, a variety of photodynamic nanotherapeutics have been developed to induce ICD and to potentiate
cancer immunotherapy. Herein, this review outlines the recent advances in the field at the intersection of
PDT, nanotechnology and ICD, including
PDT-induced ICD,
PDT-based synergistic induction of ICD, and multimodal
immunotherapy in basis of
PDT-induced ICD. Finally, the prospects and challenges of these photodynamic nanotherapeutics in ICD induction-based
cancer immunotherapy are discussed.