<p>This article discusses the implications of introducing novel treatments into clinical practice. It uses, as an example, immunotherapy with ipilimumab for the treatment of malignant melanoma to show how new treatment protocols require different frameworks for disease management. The authors highlight that standard methods of measuring disease progression during treatment are not appropriate because of the length of time that immunotherapy takes to work. They go on to outline the adverse events that patients experience during immunotherapy with ipilimumab and focus on the importance of early diagnosis and treatment of adverse events.</p>