Nanocarrier-Mediated Immunotherapy for Gynecological Malignancies: Mechanisms, Clinical Translation, and Emerging Nucleic Acid-Based Strategies

Gynecological cancers, including ovarian, cervical, and endometrial cancers, remain major contributors to female morbidity and mortality worldwide. Conventional treatments-surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy-have improved outcomes, but advanced or recurrent disease is still associated with poor prognosis, chemoresistance, and tumor heterogeneity. Immunotherapy has emerged as a transformative strategy because of its specificity and potential for durable responses. However, the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment and inefficient delivery of immunotherapeutic agents limit clinical benefit. Nanocarriers, including organic, inorganic, and biomimetic platforms, can improve targeted delivery, sustained release, biocompatibility, and tumor microenvironment remodeling, thereby enhancing immunotherapy. This review summarizes major immunotherapeutic modalities for gynecological cancers-immune checkpoint blockade, CAR-T cell therapy, tumor vaccines, and oncolytic viruses-and the classification and characteristics of commonly used nanocarriers. We focus on nanocarrier-mediated immunotherapeutic mechanisms in ovarian, cervical, and endometrial cancers, and further highlight emerging lipid nanoparticle/mRNA and programmable RNA delivery strategies. Finally, we analyze challenges in clinical translation and provide perspectives for future development, aiming to support fundamental research and clinical application of nano-immunotherapy in gynecological malignancies.

Abstract from PubMed Central (PMID 43011477, PMC13750141). This entry was added automatically by our daily literature monitor because it matches the topics we follow; read the full paper at the original source.