Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is widely studied for antitumor drug development, but its decoctions (DECs) are limited by poor solubility and low bioavailability. Although TCM-derived carbon dots (CDs) show promising potential for tumor therapy, no studies have systematically compared whether CDs exhibit superior antitumor efficacy to DECs. In this study, four TCM-derived CDs were systematically compared with their corresponding DECs for antitumor activity both in vitro and in vivo. The results showed that the CDs effectively inhibited the proliferation and migration of CMT-U27 canine mammary tumor cells in vitro, and their inhibitory effect was generally better than those of the corresponding DECs. In vivo mouse assays further indicated that all four CDs effectively inhibited tumor growth with favourable safety profile. However, their antitumor effect was not significantly different from that of the DECs in vivo, which may be due to their small size, leading to rapid clearance from the bloodstream. Therefore, simple bare CDs synthesis may be insufficient to improve the efficacy of TCM against canine mammary cancer, and additional functionalization is required.

To Cite This Article: Chen Q, Liu B, Lin Z, Li X, Zhao F, Liu C, Zhang H, Pan W, Zhang J, Kpeglo D, Taha R, Momenah MA, Mammadov E, Chen W, Lin J, 2026. Evaluation of traditional chinese medicine-derived carbon dots as antitumor agents against canine mammary cancer: a comparative study with traditional decoctions. Pak Vet J, 46(6): 1573-1585. http://dx.doi.org/10.29261/pakvetj/2026.149