Often overlooked, monitoring bone health is key for patients with blood cancer

Posted: Thursday, November 29, 2012 12:00 am | Updated: 2:59 am, Tue Jan 15, 2013.

(BPT) - An aching back is painful and inconvenient for anyone, but for people living with multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer, pain in the back and ribs can signal that the cancer has spread to their bones.

Multiple myeloma is the second most common blood cancer in the U.S., with an estimated 70,000 adult Americans living with the disease and another 21,000 new cases expected to be diagnosed in 2012. According to Dr. James Berenson, medical and scientific director at the Institute for Myeloma & Bone Cancer Research in Hollywood, Calif., “Many people with cancer focus on questions about the cancer itself, so they often don’t think to ask how the rest of their body will be affected. This is especially important for people with multiple myeloma, which goes undiagnosed until the disease has spread to the bone in up to 95 percent of cases.”