光疗或光介导疗法广泛应用于微创治疗多种肿瘤、具有药物抗性极小并且对正常器官的危害极小，包括互相光热和光动力治疗，涉及通过光照射靶器官。尽管具有这些优点，光疗仍然存在许多障碍，阻碍了临床应用的进展。因此，研究人员开发了集成光疗和治疗性细胞毒性药物的纳米粒子输送系统，以克服这些障碍并在癌症治疗中实现最大功效。活性靶向配体被整合到粒子表面以改善选择性和肿瘤靶向能力，使其易于与细胞受体结合和识别，并且相对于正常组织，在肿瘤组织上过度表达。这增强了肿瘤内积累，并对邻近正常细胞的毒性最小。各种活性靶向配体，包括抗体、适配分子、肽、乳铁蛋白、叶酸和碳水化合物，已经被研究用于基于化疗/光疗的纳米医学的靶向输送。在这些配体中，碳水化合物由于其改善生物粘附、非共价结合到生物组织的独特特征而得到应用。本综述将重点介绍碳水化合物活性靶向配体的最新技术，涉及纳米粒子的表面修饰，以改善化疗/光疗的靶向能力。版权所有©2023年。Elsevier B.V.出版。

Phototherapies or light mediated therapies, including mutually photothermal and photodynamic therapy that encompass irradiation of the target organs with light, have been widely employed as minimally invasive approach associated with negligible drug resistance for eradicating multiple tumors with minimal hazards to normal organs. Despite all these advantages, many obstacles in phototherapy hinder progress toward clinical application. Therefore, researchers have developed nano-particulate delivery systems integrated with phototherapy and therapeutic cytotoxic drugs to overcome these obstacles and achieve maximum efficacy in cancer treatment. Active targeting ligands were integrated into their surfaces to improve the selectivity and tumor targeting ability, enabling easy binding and recognition by cellular receptors overexpressed on the tumor tissue compared to normal ones. This enhances intratumoral accumulation with minimal toxicity on the adjacent normal cells. Various active targeting ligands, including antibodies, aptamers, peptides, lactoferrin, folic acid and carbohydrates, have been explored for the targeted delivery of chemotherapy/phototherapy-based nanomedicine. Among these ligands, carbohydrates have been applied due to their unique features that ameliorate the bioadhesive, noncovalent conjugation to biological tissues. In this review, the up-to-date techniques of employing carbohydrates active targeting ligands will be highlighted concerning the surface modification of the nanoparticles for ameliorating the targeting ability of the chemo/phototherapy.Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier B.V.