Cancer is the "top killer" of human health. Traditional cancer treatment methods include surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, but all of them are carried out by directly killing cancer cells, which is difficult to completely remove cancer cells and cause serious damage to normal cells and tissues. Different from traditional treatments, immunotherapy destroys tumors by regulating the body's immune defense mechanism without damaging normal cells and tissues. This paper first introduces the characteristics of immunotherapy, and expounds the research status of tumor therapy based on immunotherapy from two aspects of active immunotherapy and passive immunotherapy, aiming to provide theoretical reference for tumor drug research and promote tumor immunotherapy to achieve greater breakthroughs.