Dozens of patients, including residents of Virginia (VA) and North Carolina (NC), undergo hip replacement surgery every day. The Food and Drug Administration has recently experienced a significant increase in the number of complaints about failed hip replacements, suggesting serious issues exist with certain artificial hips, according to the New York Times. The surge in medical implant complaints has happened even as researchers have boosted efforts to evaluate the health dangers posed by such devices.
The majority of filings with the FDA seems to relate to patients who have had an all-metal hip removed, or will soon undergo such a procedure because a device failed after just a few years; generally, replacement hips should last 15 years or more.
One of the most problematic devices, the ASR, was recalled in 2010 by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary DePuy Orthopaedics and accounted for 75 percent of the complaints reviewed by the Times. The article cites fragments resulting from metal-on-metal contact as a cause for some of the complaints.
A medical provider implanting a recalled hip replacements may be sued for medical malpractice. Usually, in these hip recall cases the claim is against the makers and sellers of the products, not the surgeons who installed them.
Contact Shapiro & Appleton& Duffan if you or a loved one has suffered injuries from a recalled hip replacement or medical malpractice. The firm holds medical providers and appliance manufacturers accountable for injuries to patients.
LC