Autophagy is a highly conservative process of cell metabolism, which mainly involves the process that proteins and organelles in cells are wrapped in autophagies and transported to lysosomes for degradation. In recent years, the relationship between autophagy and tumor has become a research focus. A large number of studies have shown that a variety of chemotherapy drugs can induce the occurrence of tumor cell autophagy and the inhibition of tumor cell autophagy can lead to different outcomes: survival or death. Autophagy is an important potential approach to tumor treatment. But more studies are needed to improve the efficacy of tumor treatment via regulation of the autophagy process due to the roles of autophagy in tumor formation and development are still controversial.