[False diagnosis of "osteoporosis" in diffuse multiple myeloma (author's transl)]

Multiple myeloma is very frequently diagnosed too late. In ten patients in whom the diagnosis was ultimately made in the course of one year, the early symptom of back or skeletal pain was at first most frequently misdiagnosed as osteoporosis and so treated. Such symptoms as loss of weight, increased sedimentation rate and increase in gamma-globulins should have led to further tests, for example sternal puncture, radiological survey of the entire skeleton, and immuno-electrophoresis.