Publication Guide
The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) is a non-profit professional society founded in 1984 - originally as the Society for Biological Therapy, later the International Society for Biological Therapy of Cancer, and renamed the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer to reflect its focus on cancer immunotherapy and a more global membership. It is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and reports more than 2,400 members spanning 22 medical specialties in 42 countries.
Unlike a commercial publisher, SITC runs a single-journal program. Its official publication is the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (JITC), launched in 2013 and today published on SITC's behalf by BMJ Publishing Group. If you work in tumor immunology, immuno-oncology biomarkers, cellular therapy, or immunotherapy clinical trials, JITC is the venue this guide is about: what it publishes, what it costs, how peer review runs, and how to submit.
Is JITC the right venue for your paper?
SITC publishes one journal, so the decision is less about picking a title and more about whether your manuscript fits JITC's scope and article types.
| If your manuscript is... | JITC fit |
|---|---|
| A mechanistic study in tumor immunology or the tumor microenvironment | Strong fit - basic and translational immuno-oncology is core scope. |
| An immunotherapy clinical trial report (phase I-III) or correlative analysis | Strong fit - JITC publishes clinical and translational immunotherapy research, including biomarker and correlative studies. |
| A cell-therapy, CAR-T, TCR, or cancer-vaccine study | Strong fit - cellular and vaccine-based immunotherapy is a major stream. |
| A review, position paper, or consensus statement in immuno-oncology | Good fit - JITC carries literature reviews, position papers and SITC clinical practice guidelines. |
| General oncology with no immune component | Poor fit - consider an AACR, ASCO or ESMO title instead. |
| A non-oncology immunology study | Poor fit - an immunology society journal is a better home. |
What JITC publishes
JITC is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal covering all aspects of tumor immunology and cancer immunotherapy, from basic research through to clinical application. Typical content includes:
- Original research - basic, translational, and clinical studies in immuno-oncology.
- Clinical trial reports - early- and late-phase immunotherapy trials and their correlative science.
- Reviews and position papers - state-of-the-field syntheses in tumor immunology.
- SITC clinical practice guidelines - the society's consensus recommendations on immunotherapy for specific tumor types and on managing immune-related adverse events.
- Annual Meeting abstracts - abstracts accepted for the SITC Annual Meeting are published as a JITC supplement.
JITC is indexed in PubMed and PMC, Scopus, Web of Science (Science Citation Index Expanded), and DOAJ. Its Journal Impact Factor has sat in the roughly 10-11 range in recent JCR releases; check the current JCR for the exact figure, since journal-level metrics move every year.
Open access and APCs
JITC is fully open access - there is no subscription route and no paywalled tier. Articles are published under a Creative Commons licence, with CC BY the standard option for most authors and CC BY-NC / CC BY-NC-ND available in some circumstances. Because SITC is the owning society and BMJ is the publisher, the fees and waiver machinery are BMJ's.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Article processing charge | Approximately GBP 2,390 per research article (roughly US$2,900-3,000, before tax) |
| SITC member discount | Around 35% off the APC when a SITC member is first, last, or corresponding author |
| Low-income country waiver | Full waiver where all authors are based in low-income countries |
| Reviewer / editor discounts | Available - applied via a discount code after acceptance |
| Read & Publish coverage | Yes, through BMJ's institutional Publish and Read agreements |
| Licence | CC BY (CC BY-NC and CC BY-NC-ND available in some cases) |
APCs are revised periodically and currency conversion moves, so confirm the current figure on the JITC author pages before you submit rather than budgeting from a secondary source.
Peer review
JITC uses anonymized external peer review coordinated by an academic editorial board drawn largely from the SITC community. Reviewers are asked to assess immunological rigor as well as clinical relevance, which in practice means correlative and mechanistic data are scrutinized closely even in clinical submissions. Decisions on trial reports commonly hinge on whether the immune-correlate analyses support the clinical claims.
Turnaround varies by article type and reviewer availability; JITC's editorial office publishes current performance data, so check the journal's author pages rather than relying on community estimates.
How to submit
- Check scope. Read a recent issue and JITC's aims and scope; immuno-oncology relevance is the gate.
- Pick the article type. Original research, review, position paper, clinical trial report, or case series each have their own length and structure requirements.
- Prepare the manuscript. Follow BMJ house style; use Vancouver-style numbered references and the reporting checklist that matches your study design (CONSORT, STROBE, ARRIVE, PRISMA).
- Register data and trials. Clinical trials must be prospectively registered; JITC expects a data availability statement.
- Submit through the online system. JITC uses BMJ's ScholarOne-based submission platform, reachable from the journal site.
- Handle the APC after acceptance. Apply your SITC member discount, institutional Read & Publish agreement, or waiver at that stage.
Ethics and integrity
JITC follows BMJ's editorial policies, which are built on COPE guidance: authorship and contributorship standards, competing-interest declarations, ethics approval statements, and COPE-aligned correction and retraction procedures. Competing-interest disclosure is taken seriously in immuno-oncology given the density of industry sponsorship - expect to itemize consultancies, advisory roles, and trial funding. BMJ is also an OASPA member, and JITC content is deposited in PMC.









