氯喹是一种常见的抗疟药物，因其安全、成本低、使用方便而被列入世界卫生组织基本药物标准目录。除了抗疟作用外，氯喹还用于抗炎和抗病毒，特别是抗肿瘤治疗。大量数据表明，氯喹主要依靠抑制自噬来发挥抗肿瘤作用。然而，最近越来越多的研究表明，氯喹通过其他不依赖自噬的机制发挥作用。然而，目前的综述缺乏对氯喹抗肿瘤机制和联合药物治疗的全面总结。因此，我们在此重点关注氯喹的抗肿瘤特性，总结氯喹依赖或不依赖自噬抑制的抗肿瘤进展的药理学机制。此外，我们还讨论了氯喹的副作用和可能的应用发展。该综述对氯喹的抗肿瘤机制和联合药物治疗提供了更加系统和前沿的知识，希望对氯喹进行更深入的探索并获得更多的临床应用。© 2024 Liu et al.

Chloroquine is a common antimalarial drug and is listed in the World Health Organization Standard List of Essential Medicines because of its safety, low cost and ease of use. Besides its antimalarial property, chloroquine also was used in anti-inflammatory and antivirus, especially in antitumor therapy. A mount of data showed that chloroquine mainly relied on autophagy inhibition to exert its antitumor effects. However, recently, more and more researches have revealed that chloroquine acts through other mechanisms that are autophagy-independent. Nevertheless, the current reviews lacked a comprehensive summary of the antitumor mechanism and combined pharmacotherapy of chloroquine. So here we focused on the antitumor properties of chloroquine, summarized the pharmacological mechanisms of antitumor progression of chloroquine dependent or independent of autophagy inhibition. Moreover, we also discussed the side effects and possible application developments of chloroquine. This review provided a more systematic and cutting-edge knowledge involved in the anti-tumor mechanisms and combined pharmacotherapy of chloroquine in hope of carrying out more in-depth exploration of chloroquine and obtaining more clinical applications.© 2024 Liu et al.