Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a small subpopulation of cells that reside inside the tumor and are believed to be causative for tumor initiation, metastasis, and relapse. Due to their specific intrinsic defense mechanisms, CSCs are resistant to conventional chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which leads to treatment failure in the clinic. Recent advances in nanotechnology and materials science have provided many opportunities for cancer therapy, especially nanoparticle-mediated ablation therapies (NMAT), such as photothermal therapy, magnetic hyperthermia therapy, and cryoablation therapy, that have shown promising outcomes in CSC eradication. The procedure of NMAT is minimally invasive and not restricted by resistance mechanism and could be potentially expanded to a broad spectrum of CSCs. Moreover, NMAT could effectively damage deep-tumor CSCs and interfere with the repair of treatment-induced DNA damage. Here, we review representative studies and summarize state-of-the-art NMAT strategies for ablating CSCs and discuss challenges and opportunities in this emerging field.

癌症干细胞 (CSC) 是位于肿瘤内的一小部分细胞，被认为是肿瘤发生、转移和复发的原因。由于其特定的内在防御机制，CSCs 对常规化疗和放疗具有抵抗力，导致临床治疗失败。纳米技术和材料科学的最新进展为癌症治疗提供了许多机会，特别是纳米粒子介导的消融疗法 (NMAT)，如光热疗法、磁热疗和冷冻消融疗法，在根除 CSC 方面显示出有希望的结果。NMAT 手术是微创的，不受耐药机制的限制，可能会扩展到广泛的 CSC。而且，NMAT 可以有效地破坏深部肿瘤 CSCs 并干扰治疗引起的 DNA 损伤的修复。在这里，我们回顾了代表性研究并总结了用于消融 CSC 的最先进的 NMAT 策略，并讨论了这一新兴领域的挑战和机遇。