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Patient safety
How to tell real immunotherapy — from an unproven treatment
Three checks settle it. Real immunotherapy has a specific generic drug name you can write down, a CDSCO approval that covers your cancer and your stage, and a qualified oncologist who prescribes and monitors it in a licensed facility. If any one of the three is missing, treat the offer as unverified until it has been checked.
Medically reviewed by Dr. Bharati Devi Gorantla, Medical Oncologist · MBBS · MD · DM (Adyar, Chennai) · ECMO · MRCP SCE (UK) · Last reviewed August 2026
- Three checks, no medical training needed — a generic drug name, a CDSCO approval for your cancer, and an oncologist who owns the follow-up
- The warning signs are about paperwork — no named drug, package pricing up front, secrecy from your oncologist, testimonials instead of published evidence
- What genuinely exists in India, stated plainly — which immunotherapy categories are approved here, and which are marketed without approval
- The questions to ask before you pay — eight questions a real centre answers in writing, and what a deflection tells you
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The short answer first
How can you tell real immunotherapy from an unproven treatment?
Three checks settle it. Real immunotherapy has a specific generic drug name you can write down. It has a CDSCO approval that covers your cancer and your stage. And it is prescribed and monitored by a qualified oncologist in a licensed facility. If any one of the three is missing, treat the offer as unverified.
This page is written bluntly on purpose. Families in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are offered “immunotherapy” every week by people who are not oncologists, and the money involved is often the family's last. Nothing here is about discouraging hope. It is about making sure the hope is attached to something that can be checked.
Note that the three checks are about paperwork, not about persuasion. You do not need to understand immunology to apply them, you do not need to argue with anyone, and you do not need to be rude. You only need answers in writing.
Is there a generic drug name?
Not a category such as “immune therapy” or “cell treatment”, but the actual generic name of a medicine, written on the prescription. A name is what makes every later check possible.
Is it approved in India for your cancer?
India's Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) approves medicines for named indications. Approval for a different cancer, or approval only in another country, is not approval for you.
Who prescribes it, and who watches you afterwards?
Immunotherapy is prescribed by a qualified oncologist and given where urgent bloods, steroids and emergency care are available. At CION it is given as day care. If nobody owns the follow-up, walk away.
This page names practices, not businesses. It describes how unproven offers are structured — unnamed products, package pricing, secrecy, testimonial evidence — and never names a particular clinic, practitioner or product. If you have been given a specific name, bring it to an oncologist rather than to a search engine.
Did you know?
In India, a medicine can only be prescribed as a cancer treatment once the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has approved it for a specific cancer indication. “Approved abroad”, “approved for research” and “approved for another cancer” are three different things, and none of them means approved for you. (Source: CDSCO drug approval framework, patient-education context.)
Warning signs
What are the warning signs of an unproven cancer treatment clinic?
The strongest warning signs have nothing to do with medicine. They are about paperwork, pricing and secrecy: no generic drug name, payment up front as a package, advice to hide it from your oncologist, claims that it works for every cancer, testimonials instead of published evidence, and no plan for a serious reaction.
It is never a specific, named drug
A genuine treatment has a generic drug name you can write down and look up. An unproven offer stays at the level of a category — an “immune therapy”, a “cell infusion”, a “personalised vaccine” — and the wording changes depending on who is asking. If nobody will put a generic name on paper, there is nothing for anyone to verify.
Payment is up front, as a package, and often in cash
Approved cancer treatment is billed cycle by cycle, with an itemised receipt, and it can be paused if it is not helping. Unproven offers are commonly sold as one package, payable in advance, sometimes in cash, with a discount for deciding today. The pressure to pay before you have consulted anyone else is itself the warning sign.
Your own oncologist is treated as the obstacle
You are told not to mention this to your treating doctor, or that oncologists dismiss it because they lose income. A genuine centre expects you to tell your oncologist and will send a written summary for your file. Any offer that has to be kept secret from the doctor treating your cancer is not one to accept.
It is claimed to work for every cancer
Approved immunotherapy is approved for named cancers, at named stages, usually only after a specific test on your tumour tissue. A treatment described as helping all cancers, at any stage, in any patient, is describing a wellness product rather than an oncology treatment. Breadth of claim is one of the most reliable markers of weak evidence.
The evidence offered is testimonials, not published data
Ask for the evidence and you are shown recovery videos, framed photographs, foreign-sounding certificates, or one practitioner's personal experience. What is never shown is a published trial, a listing in NCCN, ASCO or ESMO guidance, or a registration document you can check yourself. Stories are not data, however moving they are to hear.
There is no diagnosis, no stage and no written plan
Every legitimate cancer treatment begins with a biopsy-confirmed diagnosis, a stage, and a written plan naming the drug, the dose, the number of cycles and the review scan. If treatment is being offered before or without that paperwork, nobody involved will be able to explain later what you were treated for, or why.
It is called a trial, is not registered, and you are being charged
Real clinical trials in India are registered with the Clinical Trials Registry-India (CTRI), carry ethics-committee approval and a written informed-consent document, and do not charge patients for the investigational treatment itself. An unregistered “trial” that you have to pay for is not a trial. It is an unapproved treatment with a better name.
There is no plan for what happens if something goes wrong
Ask what happens if there is a serious reaction at two in the morning, who admits you, and which hospital holds your records. Genuine immunotherapy is given where emergency care, urgent blood tests and steroids are immediately available. Unproven infusions are frequently given in wellness rooms, hotel rooms or standalone premises with no escalation path at all.
One warning sign on its own may have an innocent explanation. Three or more together is a pattern, and the pattern is the point. Take the offer, in writing, to your treating oncologist before any money changes hands.
Say which — plainly
Which immunotherapy treatments are actually available in India?
A great deal of confusion comes from not knowing what genuinely exists here. This table separates the approved categories from the marketed ones, so you can see immediately which column an offer belongs in.
| Category of treatment | Status in India | What to check before agreeing |
|---|---|---|
| Checkpoint inhibitor therapy (the PD-1, PD-L1 and CTLA-4 classes) | Approved by CDSCO for specific cancers and stages. Given as day care at cancer centres, including CION. | That the approval covers your cancer and stage, and that a biomarker test on your tumour supports using it. |
| Bladder instillation immunotherapy (BCG, put into the bladder rather than infused) | A long-established, approved treatment for early, non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer. | That your cancer is the early bladder type this is used for, and who manages the instillation schedule. |
| CAR-T and other cell therapies | A genuinely approved category in India for certain blood cancers, delivered only at a small number of accredited centres. CION does not provide, administer or stock CAR-T or any cell therapy and refers patients to licensed centres. | That the centre is accredited for cell therapy, and that your cancer is one of the approved indications. |
| Therapeutic cancer vaccines | Very few are approved anywhere in the world. Most remain investigational, including in India. | Whether this is a CTRI-registered trial with ethics approval, or a paid product using the word “vaccine”. |
| Cytokine therapies (the interferon and interleukin classes) | An older immunotherapy category, still used in a narrow set of situations and largely superseded by newer approaches. | Why this rather than a current standard option for your cancer, and which guideline supports the choice. |
| Dendritic-cell infusions sold as a paid service | Outside a registered clinical trial, this is not an approved cancer treatment in India. | The CTRI registration, the ethics approval, and whether you are being charged for the investigational treatment. |
| Ozone therapy, “immunity drips” and high-dose vitamin infusions marketed as immunotherapy | Not approved as cancer treatment in India, and not immunotherapy in the medical sense of the word. | Nothing to verify here — but do tell your oncology team, because interactions with real treatment are possible. |
| Stem-cell “immune boosters” for solid tumours | Not an approved cancer treatment. Stem-cell transplant is a separate, genuine treatment for certain blood cancers, done at licensed transplant centres. | Whether what is being offered is an approved transplant indication, or the term being borrowed for marketing. |
For the categories that are real, the individual treatment pages explain what each one involves — for example Side Effects of BCG Bladder Treatment for the bladder instillation route, and Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines: What Exists Today for where vaccine research has and has not reached.
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MBBS, MD(General Medicine), DM(Medical Oncology)(Adyar,Chennai), ECMO, MRCP SCE(UK)
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Take this list with you
What questions should you ask before agreeing to any immunotherapy?
Ask eight questions and ask for the answers in writing. A genuine centre answers all eight easily, because the answers already exist in your file. An unproven one deflects, reassures, or changes the subject to how little time there is. The deflection is your answer.
What is the generic name of the drug?
You want a medicine name on paper, not a category. Without it, nothing that follows can be checked by anybody.
Is it CDSCO-approved for my cancer and my stage?
Approved for a different cancer, or approved only overseas, is not approved for you. Ask for the indication in writing.
Which guideline recommends it for someone like me?
NCCN, ASCO or ESMO. A genuine oncologist will name the guideline and the setting without needing to look it up.
Is this approved treatment, or a clinical trial?
Both can be legitimate. They are governed differently, and you are entitled to know plainly which one you are being offered.
If it is a trial, what is the CTRI number?
Registered trials have one. Ask also who the ethics committee is and what the consent document says about costs.
What is your registration, and in which speciality?
Ask where the oncology qualification is registered. A doctor who is not an oncologist should not be leading cancer treatment.
Where will I be treated, and what happens if I react badly?
You want a named facility, a named escalation hospital, and a phone number that is answered at night before the first dose.
May I take this plan for a second opinion?
The single most useful question on the list. Any hesitation, or any reason why there is no time for one, tells you what you need.
You are not being difficult by asking. These are the same questions an oncologist asks when reviewing another centre's plan, and CION oncologists will go through them with you free of charge, whether or not you ever become a patient here.
Do this before you pay
How do you verify that a treatment is approved in India?
Verification runs in five steps and needs no medical training. Get the generic name in writing. Check that CDSCO has approved it for your cancer. Check that NCCN, ASCO or ESMO guidance supports it for someone in your position. Check the prescriber and the premises. If it is called a trial, check the CTRI registration.
Get the generic name, in writing
Ask for a prescription or a written plan carrying the generic name of the medicine. If the answer stays at the level of a category, or the name changes between conversations, stop here — there is nothing to check, and that is the finding.
Check CDSCO approval — for your cancer, not just for cancer
CDSCO approves medicines for named indications. Ask which indication the approval covers and compare it against your own diagnosis and stage. Use of an approved drug outside its approved indication is a decision for an oncologist to explain and document, not something to discover later.
Check the guideline bodies
NCCN, ASCO and ESMO publish patient-facing and clinician-facing guidance on which treatments are recommended in which settings. If a treatment appears nowhere in any of them for your cancer, ask directly why, and ask for the answer in writing rather than in conversation.
Check the prescriber and the premises
Confirm the doctor's registration with the National Medical Commission or the state medical council, and confirm the speciality is oncology. Confirm the facility is licensed to give infusions and can escalate an emergency to a named hospital, in minutes rather than hours.
If it is called a trial, check the CTRI
Ask for the Clinical Trials Registry-India number and the ethics-committee approval, and read the informed-consent document before signing it. Registered trials do not charge you for the investigational treatment. This page explains how trials work; it does not recruit for any of them.
Did you know?
A clinical trial is not the opposite of a proven treatment — it is how a treatment becomes proven. In India a genuine trial is registered with the Clinical Trials Registry-India (CTRI), has ethics-committee approval and written informed consent, and does not bill you for the investigational treatment itself. Being asked to pay for a “trial” is the clearest sign it is not one.
If it has already happened
What if your family has already paid for or started one of these?
Do not stop anything abruptly without telling the oncology team, and do not waste energy on blame. Collect every receipt, label and photograph, bring them to the next appointment, and say exactly what was taken and for how long. What matters now is checking interactions and getting the treatment plan back on track.
Families who go down this road are not gullible. They are frightened, they are often paying for a parent or a child, and they have usually been told something that sounded like certainty at a moment when nobody else was offering any. Shame is the main reason people hide it from their oncologist, and hiding it is the only part of this that makes it more dangerous.
- Tell the oncology team everything. Herbal preparations, infusions, supplements and injections can affect blood counts, liver and kidney function, or blood pressure, and some interact with prescribed treatment.
- Keep the physical evidence. Bottles, labels, packaging, receipts and any infusion record. If nobody knows what was given, nobody can assess it.
- Ask what the delay has cost, honestly. An oncologist can tell you whether the treatment plan needs to change. That answer is more useful than any reassurance.
- Reporting is a separate step. If you want to report a provider to the state medical council or the drug authority, do it — but do not let it delay restarting proper care.
CION oncologists have this conversation regularly and without judgement. Nothing you disclose changes whether you are treated or how you are treated.
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Common questions
Telling real immunotherapy from an unproven treatment: your questions answered
What are the warning signs of an unproven cancer treatment clinic?
The clearest signs are structural, not medical. There is no specific generic drug name you can write down and check. Payment is demanded up front, as a package, often in cash. You are advised not to tell your oncologist. The treatment is claimed to work for every cancer at every stage. The evidence offered is testimonials and certificates rather than published trials or guideline listings. There is no biopsy-confirmed diagnosis, no stage and no written plan. It is called a trial but has no CTRI registration and you are being charged. And nobody can tell you what happens if you have a serious reaction at night.
What questions should I ask before agreeing to an immunotherapy treatment?
Ask eight things, and ask for the answers in writing. What is the generic name of the drug? Is it approved by CDSCO for my cancer and my stage? Which guideline, NCCN, ASCO or ESMO, recommends it for someone in my situation? Is this approved treatment or a clinical trial, and if a trial, what is the CTRI number? What is your medical registration? Where will I be treated and what happens if I react badly? Will you itemise the diagnosis, the plan and the cost? And finally, may I take this plan for a second opinion? A genuine centre answers all eight without hesitation.
How do I verify that an immunotherapy is approved in India?
Start with the generic name in writing, because without it nothing can be checked. Then confirm the drug appears in India's Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) approvals, and that the approval covers your cancer and your stage, not simply cancer in general. Check whether NCCN, ASCO or ESMO guidance recommends it for a patient in your position. Confirm the prescribing doctor's registration with the National Medical Commission or the state medical council, and that the premises are a licensed facility. If it is described as a trial, ask for the Clinical Trials Registry-India (CTRI) number. Anything that fails these checks should go to your oncologist before you pay.
Which immunotherapy treatments are actually available in India?
Checkpoint inhibitor therapy is approved by CDSCO for specific cancers and stages and is given as day care at cancer centres, including CION. Intravesical BCG has been used for early, non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer for decades. CAR-T and other cell therapies are approved in India for certain blood cancers but are delivered only at a small number of accredited centres. CION does not provide, administer or stock CAR-T or any cell therapy, and refers patients to licensed centres. Cytokine therapies remain in narrow use. Therapeutic cancer vaccines are largely investigational. Ozone therapy, immunity drips and dendritic-cell infusions sold as paid services are not approved cancer treatments in India.
Is a clinical trial the same as an unproven treatment?
No. A registered clinical trial is a legitimate and sometimes valuable option, and it is regulated. In India it must be registered with the Clinical Trials Registry-India (CTRI), approved by an ethics committee, and supported by a written informed-consent document explaining what is known and what is not. You should not be charged for the investigational treatment itself. An unregistered study, or one you are asked to pay for as though it were established care, is not a trial. If a trial interests you, discuss it with your oncology team first. This page explains how trials work; it is not an invitation to enrol in any particular one.
What should I do if my family member has already paid for or started an unproven treatment?
First, no blame. Families take these decisions out of love, usually under enormous pressure. Do not stop anything abruptly without telling the oncology team, because some preparations affect blood counts, liver function or blood pressure. Gather every document: receipts, labels, prescriptions, photographs of the packaging and any infusion records. Bring all of it to the next oncology appointment and say exactly what was taken and for how long, so interactions can be checked and any delay to the treatment plan can be assessed. If you wish to report the provider, that is a separate step. The clinical priority is getting the cancer treatment plan back on track.