Recent advances in cold atmospheric plasma for tumor therapy

With the increase in cancer morbidity and mortality, the search for new, complementary, and less invasive tumor therapies with fewer side effects is still the focus of the current work. Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) is an ionized gas produced at atmospheric pressure that is a promising tumor treatment due to its ability to selectively induce cancer cell apoptosis. This review aims to summarize the sources, equipment, mechanism, treatment methods, and combinations of CAP with other treatments. The perspectives and challenges of CAP for tumor treatment, particularly the prospects and challenges of clinical applications, are discussed.