Wan-Fu Lin: Changhai Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
Jian-Ying Lu: Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jing'an Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Hefei 200040, Anhui Province, China.
Bin-Bin Cheng: Changhai Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
Chang-Quan Ling: Changhai Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
Tumor microenvironment (TME) has received more and more attention as modern medical research has begun to understand its importance in tumorigenesis. The occurrence, development, metastasis and drug resistance of tumors are closely related to TME. TME is a complicated system, including nontumor cells, their secreted cytokines, extracellular matrix, among other components. The concepts of wholism and multitarget regulation in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) make it well suited to the regulation of TME. In this paper, the authors reviewed the progress of TME research and the effect of TCM on TME, providing some views of Chinese medicine in antitumor research.
