Diabetes mellitus（DM）and malignant tumor（MT）are two major diseases that affect human physical and mental health. Insulin resistance is the main pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes mellitus（T2DM）. Macrophages play an important role in the tumor immune response and highly infiltrate and produce C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 5（CXCL5）in diabetic patients. Tumor-associated macrophages（TAMs）/ M2 macrophages highly infiltrate and secrete CXCL5 in the tumor microenvironment（TME）. CXCL5 can further regulate TME by promoting tumor angiogenesis and combining with its target gene，thus affecting the occurrence，development and prognosis of MT. In this paper，the molecular characteristics and related pathways of CXCL5 as well as the research progress of CXCL5 in the correlation between T2DM and MT were elaborated，looking forward to open up new ideas and methods for the clinical treatment of T2DM and MT and improving the outcome.