抗癌治疗策略的批准仍然受到缺乏能够忠实再现体内癌症生理的模型的影响。一方面，传统的体外模型无法重现人体器官和组织结构、液体流动和机械刺激。另一方面，体内动物模型无法再现人体瘤微环境，而这对于研究癌症的行为和进展至关重要。本研究综述了癌症芯片作为最有前途的工具之一，以模拟和研究肿瘤微环境和转移。我们还介绍了如何开发和应用癌症芯片设备来研究最常见的原发癌以及其转移部位。然后讨论了这项技术的优缺点，突出了将临床前研究和临床研究之间的差距缩小，并加快新型抗癌疗法在人体中获得批准的未来挑战。© 2023. BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature.

The approval of anticancer therapeutic strategies is still slowed down by the lack of models able to faithfully reproduce in vivo cancer physiology. On one hand, the conventional in vitro models fail to recapitulate the organ and tissue structures, the fluid flows, and the mechanical stimuli characterizing the human body compartments. On the other hand, in vivo animal models cannot reproduce the typical human tumor microenvironment, essential to study cancer behavior and progression. This study reviews the cancer-on-chips as one of the most promising tools to model and investigate the tumor microenvironment and metastasis. We also described how cancer-on-chip devices have been developed and implemented to study the most common primary cancers and their metastatic sites. Pros and cons of this technology are then discussed highlighting the future challenges to close the gap between the pre-clinical and clinical studies and accelerate the approval of new anticancer therapies in humans.© 2023. BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature.