Cancer is one of the deadliest diseases affecting the health of human beings. With limited therapeutic options available

complementary and alternative medicine has been widely adopted in cancer management and is increasingly becoming accepted by both patients and healthcare workers alike. Chinese medicine characterized by its unique diagnostic and treatment system is the most widely applied complementary and alternative medicine. It emphasizes symptoms and

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(syndrome)-based treatment combined with contemporary disease diagnosis and further stratifies patients into individualized medicine subgroups. As a representative cancer with the highest degree of malignancy

pancreatic cancer is traditionally classified into the "amassment and accumulation". Emerging perspectives define the core pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer as "dampness-heat" and the respective treatment "clearing heat and resolving dampness" has been demonstrated to prolong survival in pancreatic cancer patients

as has been observed in many other cancers. This clinical advantage encourages an exploration of the essence of dampness-heat

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(DHZ) in cancer and investigation into underlying mechanisms of action of herbal formulations against dampness-heat. However

at present

there is a lack of understanding of the molecular characteristics of DHZ in cancer and no standardized and widely accepted animal model to study this core syndrome

in vivo

. The shortage of animal models limits the ability to uncover the antitumor mechanisms of herbal medicines and to assess the safety profile of the natural products derived from them. This review summarizes the current research on DHZ in cancer in terms of the clinical aspects

molecular landscape

and animal models. This study aims to provide comprehensive insight that can be used for the establishment of a future standardized

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-based cancer animal model.