New York Times Report: Thousands Injured by Metal-on-Metal Hip Complications

Tweet

According to a recent analysis by the New York Times, the FDA has received a huge increase in complaints regarding complications with metal-on-metal hip replacements in 2011. Once thought to be revolutionary devices, metal-on-metal hip implants like the DePuy ASR have increasingly reported early failure rates and a host of other severe side effects. To date, more than 1,000 artificial hip lawsuits have been filed nationwide, and many more expected in the near future.

Metal-on-Metal Hip Implant Update 4/3/12: The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has scheduled a two-day meeting in June to discuss the safety of metal-on-metal hip implants, which have been increasingly associated with high rates of failure. The devices have come under heavy scrutiny over the past several years due to a high number of reports of pain and swelling that have sometimes required additional revision surgeries to correct. Click here to learn more.

DePuy Hip Update 3/6/12: Hundreds of thousands of patients have been fitted with DePuy metal-on-metal hip implant devices whose faulty design may be exposing them to toxic cobalt and chromium shards, according to a report published last month in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). The risk allegedly comes from the implants’ metal joints grinding together against each other, which can result in a severe type of metal poisoning known as metallosis. Click here to learn more.

Free Metal-on-Metal Hip Implant Lawsuit Case Evaluation: If you or a loved one has been injured by a defective metal-on-metal hip implant device, you should contact our law firm immediately. You may be entitled to compensation by filing a lawsuit and we can help.

What’s the problem?

August 24, 2011 – The new report states that so far this year, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has received more than 5,000 adverse event reports involving metal-on-metal hip replacement systems, 75 percent of which were DePuy ASR hips. The devices are designed to last 15 years or more, but an increasing number of complaints suggest that thousands of recipients are experiencing implant failure within a few years of surgery.

Up until about 2008, metal-on-metal hip replacement devices accounted for more than 30 percent of the 250,000 hip replacements performed each year around the country. However, in the time since, controversy surrounding the devices has resulted in a drop to just five percent of the artificial hip market.

Metal-on-Metal Hip Implant Side Effects

Mounting research and numerous case studies have found that as the metal-on-metal parts rub against each other, microscopic particles of cobalt and chromium may shed into the body, resulting in the following side effects:

• metal poisoning (metallosis)
• soft tissue damage
• inflammatory reactions
• bone loss
• genetic damage
• aseptic fibrosis
• local necrosis
• other problems

Unfortunately, these side effects may lead to the need for painful revision surgeries to correct the issues.

It is generally accepted that less than 10 percent of all side effects linked to defective medical devices are ever reported to federal health regulators. Therefore, it is likely that reports such as the one identified by the New York Times only represent a very small fraction of the actual injuries suffered.

DePuy issued an ASR hip recall in August 2010, which included nearly 100,000 devices sold around the world. Since 2007, approximately 7,500 injury reports have been linked to DePuy ASR hip complications.

To date, more than 1,000 DePuy ASR hip replacement lawsuits have been filed around the country. The company also faces a growing number of lawsuits involving its DePuy Pinnacle hip, which is structurally very similar to the ASR. Although DePuy has yet to recall the Pinnacle, lawsuits allege that the older device features many of the same design flaws that have plagued the ASR system.

Do You Have a Metal-on-Metal Hip Implant Lawsuit?

The Product Liability and Defective Medical Device Litigation Group at our law firm is an experienced team of trial lawyers that focus on the representation of plaintiffs in metal-on-metal hip implant lawsuits. We are handling individual litigation nationwide and currently accepting new metal-on-metal hip replacement injury cases in all 50 states.