Abstract:Cancer has become a threat to human health, one of the major devastating diseases. Due to the lack of effective treatments, the number of deaths from cancer is still showing a trend of increasing year by year. Based on the overall macro-dialectical thinking mode, and with the unique effect and low side effect, traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) has attracted the attention of cancer researchers and clinicians from around the world. Bitter-cold herbs have significant anti-tumor effects. In this paper, we reviewed the research progress of these herbs and their active constituents by referring to the relevant literatures published in the last decade at home and abroad. According to the function of bitter-cold herbs and their natural active ingredients, this review was divided into nine parts:induction of tumor cell apoptosis, induction of cancer cell differentiation, anti-cancer invasion and anti-metastasis effect, inhibition of tumor angiogenesis, improvement of immune function, reversal of multi-drug resistance, anti-information transmission, inhibition of telomerase activity and cell cycle arrest. In addition, the current situation and existing problems were reviewed in order to screen the anti-tumor Chinese medicine and their active components, thus discovering new drugs with high efficiency and low toxicity from TCM, and benefiting further clinical application.