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As patients with multiple myeloma live longer, helping them live better through improvements in supportive care is equally as vital. Intrinsic to the disease are bone-related complications at presentation and over the course of illness. Bisphosphonates have been an important therapy for ameliorating the risk of skeletal-related events, and work is ongoing to determine their optimal schedule. Patients with multiple myeloma also encounter several challenges related to their treatment, including peripheral neuropathy, thrombotic complications, and infections. These challenges are being addressed through a better understanding of the risk factors for developing these complications and by mitigating these risks through better dosing schemas and prophylaxis.

Cancer and its treatment can compromise bone health, leading to fracture, pain, loss of mobility, and hypercalcemia of malignancy. Bone metastasis occurs frequently in advanced prostate and breast cancers, and bony manifestations are commonplace in multiple myeloma. Osteoporosis and osteopenia may be consequences of androgen-deprivation therapy for prostate cancer, aromatase inhibition for breast cancer, or chemotherapy-induced ovarian failure. Osteoporotic bone loss and bone metastasis ultimately share a pathophysiologic pathway that stimulates bone resorption by increasing the formation and activity of osteoclasts. Important mediators of pathologic bone metabolism include substances produced by osteoblasts, such as RANKL, the receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa B ligand, which spurs osteoclast differentiation from myeloid cells. Available therapies are targeted to various steps in cascade of bone metastasis.