Organic Semiconducting Polymers for Cancer Sonodynamic Immunotherapy

Peiting Hu1, Shasha He1, Huayu Tian1

  • 1College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Innovation Laboratory for Sciences and Technologies of Energy Materials of Fujian Province (IKKEM), State Key Laboratory of Vaccines for Infectious Diseases, Xiang An Biomedicine Laboratory, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.

Polymer Science & Technology (Washington, D.C.)
|June 8, 2026
PubMed

Cancer immunotherapy has attracted significant attention in recent years for its ability to harness the patient's own immune system to target and eliminate tumors. Despite its promise, major challenges remain, including low tumor immunogenicity, immunosuppressive tumor microenvironments, and systemic toxicities. To address these issues, activatable immunotherapy strategies have been developed, enabling the precise activation of immune agents in response to specific endogenous or exogenous signals. Among these approaches, ultrasound-triggered sonodynamic therapy (SDT) has emerged as a promising non-invasive modality, offering deep tissue penetration and spatiotemporal precision. Organic semiconducting polymers (SPs), as a class of sonosensitizers, exhibit excellent acoustic responsiveness, biocompatibility, and structural tunability, making them ideal candidates for tumor-targeted SDT. This Review highlights recent advances in the application of organic semiconducting polymers in cancer immunotherapy, discusses current challenges, and explores future directions for developing more precise and low-toxicity therapeutic strategies.

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