Anti-inflammatory catecholic chitosan hydrogel for rapid surgical trauma healing and subsequent prevention of tumor recurrence

Although occupying pillar position in clinical cancer treatments, surgery itself and surgical trauma would elicit series of local/systemic inflammation-related responses that resulted in high rate of tumor recurrence. Herein, chitosan with conjugated gallic acid (CSG) molecules were coordinated with Fe3+ to form CSG/Fe3+ hydrogel for filling the tumor-resected cavity with considerable wet-adhesion ability and anti-inflammatory performance. With the assistance of doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX∙HCl), CSG/Fe3+/DOX hydrogel exhibited synergistic photothermal-chemo tumor-inhibited performance under near-infrared (NIR) light irradiation for eradicating residual and/or surgical trauma-recruited cancer cells. Thus, our study attempts to show a paradigm that realizes quick surgical trauma healing, inflammation inhibition and prevention of postsurgical tumor recurrence.