Here’s What We Know: How Immunotherapy Clinical Trials Are Reshaping Cancer Care

April 10, 2026
Male doctor visiting female cancer patient with care and compassion in hospital room

From the early days, external therapies have helped treat cancer. Immunotherapy uses a different approach. Instead of relying on medication, radiation therapy or surgery, immunotherapy puts your immune system to work. Through immunotherapy clinical trials, experts at Weill Cornell Medicine are helping to develop new uses for this treatment approach. 

Here’s how this innovative treatment and ongoing clinical trials are reshaping the present and future of cancer care. 

Types of Immunotherapy Offered 

All types of immunotherapy help your immune system function more effectively, and each type does so in a distinct manner. Immunotherapy clinical trials aim to optimize each approach, resulting in a more effective experience and outcome. 

Types of immunotherapy being studied in the treatment of various types of cancer include: 

  • Immune checkpoint inhibitors. Inside your immune system, a series of checkpoints helps prevent your body from overreacting. Unfortunately, these checkpoints can keep your immune system from recognizing cancer. Immune checkpoint inhibitors essentially block these checkpoints. This helps your immune system recognize and destroy cancer cells. 
  • Immune system modulators. This uses specific proteins, bacteria and medication to help boost your immune system’s response. These modulators are often used to help manage side effects from other cancer treatments. Immunotherapy clinical trials have proven that they also help fight cancer.  
  • Monoclonal antibodies. This immunotherapy approach uses lab-grown proteins. Once injected into your body, these proteins move around, marking any cancerous cells. Your immune system then targets and destroys these cells. 
  • T-cell transfer therapy. A member of your care team finds and removes special immune cells from your body that are busy fighting cancer. Laboratory experts then multiply these cells before they’re reintroduced to your body. With more of these strong immune cells, your body can better fight off cancer.  
  • Vaccination. While most vaccines prevent disease, cancer treatment vaccines help your immune system see and respond to cancer cells that are already present. The ingredients in your vaccine may come from your tumor, your own immune cells or material found in similar cancers. 

When Immunotherapy Typically Gets Used 

For years, cancer treatment has begun with the standard of care, such as radiation and chemotherapy. When conventional therapy failed, providers turned to other options, such as immunotherapy. 

In fact, some forms of immunotherapy were originally reserved for cancer patients with very advanced cancers. These cancers either returned after being gone for a while or didn’t respond to traditional treatment options. Immunotherapy often helped in these severe cases. 

Ongoing clinical trials are revealing that immunotherapy has greater potential than initially realized and can benefit patients at all stages of disease. 

How Immunotherapy Clinical Trials Are Pushing Medicine Forward 

Multicenter, randomized clinical trials aim to further investigate the limits of immunotherapy. Recent years have found this therapy to be effective at the following: 

  • Improving quality of life and decreasing symptoms in late-stage cancer 
  • Preventing the spread of cancer during early disease stages  
  • Reducing the size of cancerous tumors 

With these findings, immunotherapy has transformed into a frontline treatment. In some cases of solid tumor cancer, it’s now the first treatment given. It’s regularly used to treat melanoma, small cell lung cancer and kidney cancer. It has also been found useful in treating skin cancers that have spread to nearby tissue (locally advanced) or distant (metastatic) areas. 

As clinical trials continue, researchers also improve their understanding of immunotherapy’s potential side effects. These can come during or after treatment and may include: 

  • Difficulty breathing  
  • Fever, chills and other flu-like symptoms 
  • Headache 
  • Pain or rash at the site of injection 
  • Sinus congestion 

If you receive immunotherapy in a clinical trial, notify your care team of any side effects you experience. This empowers your team to help alleviate your symptoms and continue protecting your health and wellbeing. Speaking up also helps provide important data that guides future research efforts. 

Conclusion  

Immunotherapy clinical trials continue to uncover new ways to harness the power of your immune system to fight cancer. 

  • There are multiple types of immunotherapy, and each helps your immune system in a different way. 
  • In the early days of immunotherapy, the therapy was reserved for recurring cancers or those that resisted standard treatment methods. 
  • Ongoing research efforts are expanding the uses of immunotherapy and reshaping the face of cancer care forever. 

Find out about immunotherapy clinical trials taking place at Weill Cornell Medicine by visiting the Joint Clinical Trials Office. 

Related Links

Here's What We Know Here’s What We Know: A Guide to Clinical Trial Costs Here’s What We Know: Diversity in Clinical Trials Here’s What We Know: How Clinical Trials Are Monitored for Safety Here’s What We Know: The ABCs of Clinical Trial Terminology Questions to Ask About Clinical Trials: Your Guide Infographic: Here's What We Know – Is a Clinical Trial Right For Me?

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