Multiple myeloma is a B-cell origin tumor characterized by hypercalcemia, osteolytic bony lesions, and pathologic fractures. Back pain is one of the most common presenting symptoms of multiple myeloma and about 60% of patients have vertebral involvement at the time of diagnosis7). Minimally invasive surgeries such as vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty are effective to relieve pain and improve the q...

This clinical vignette illustrates how our therapeutic approaches to early stages of multiple myeloma have changed over the past decade with novel therapies reducing disease and preventing disease progression. Recent paradigms of multiple myeloma describe the disease as a spectrum of clinical stages, including asymptomatic 'smoldering' states that progress to symptomatic states. The average 5-y...

Multiple myeloma is a monoclonal postgerminal center tumor that has phenotypic features of plasmablasts and/or plasma cells and usually localizes at multiple sites in the bone marrow. The pathogenesis of multiple myeloma is complex and dependent on the interactions between tumor cells and their microenvironment. Different cytokines, chemokines, and proangiogenic factors released in the tumor mi...

BACKGROUND Thrombocytopenia is a significant problem in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, precipitating a need for supportive platelet transfusions and necessitating decreases in delivered doses of chemotherapy. Eltrombopag is a non-peptide, small molecule thrombopoietin (TPO) receptor agonist that promotes megakaryopoiesis similar to endogenous human TPO and may be an effe...