Photothermal therapy-mediated autophagy in breast cancer treatment: Progress and trends

Breast cancer (BC) has different clinical manifestations due to its diverse mechanism of action that has created many challenges to choosing appropriate treatment. Recent findings of the biology of breast cancer including the mechanisms of survival and metastasis, understanding the effective signaling pathways in tumor formation and modeling of cancer cell responses to the therapeutic approaches provided significant advances in BC treatment. In this regard, the use of phototherapy-based approaches such as photothermal therapy (PTT) would be an encouraging alternative for tumor suppression through activating autophagy or suppressing cell signaling that influences the cell cycle to induce cell death. Since autophagy has a dual opposite role consisting of pro-survival and growth inhibition in breast cancer microenvironments, the regulation of autophagy would be playing promising roles in the treatment of BC using PTT. This review updates the molecular mechanisms that PTT could evoke autophagic cell death in breast cancer. Moreover, this article provides insights into the biological effects of autophagy-targeted-PTT as a promising strategy for breast cancer therapy.