DePuy Hip Implant Revisions Chip Away at Recipient Confidence

DePuy Hip Implant Revisions Chip Away at Recipient Confidence

DePuy Orthopaedics might be thinking that it will not have to pay substantial damages to many who received an ASR device, because an eighty-year-old recipient can be expected to live much less longer than, say, a forty-year-old recipient, all other things being equal.

The younger recipient, however, faces a different problem: Because the process of replacing a hip requires chipping away at the femur (the bone of the thigh), to make it receptive to an implant, having to replace a defective device such as DePuy's ASR much sooner than normal means that a person might not be able to have as many revision surgeries as he or she would otherwise.

Replacement hips are not designed to last forever. The typical implant lasts 15 years. Eventually, hip replacement is no longer an option. A defective replacement hip can make that day arrive much sooner.

A study presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons projected that persons younger than 65 could account for more than half of all hip replacement recipients as early as next year. The current overall life expectancy at birth is 78.2 years. A person who receives a first hip implant at age 65 would, generally speaking, not be expected to outlive his or her implant, if that implant can be expected to last 15 years. If the recipient lives past age 80, as more or more Americans are doing, and as they will (and especially women) be expected to do as soon as the year 2050, a revision surgery will be in order, to replace the first implant.

If one's implant fails after just five years, however, the recipient will need revision surgery much sooner than expected. The chipping away at one's femur as part of the initial implant procedure might not be substantial, but there would likely be further chipping after just five years. If, then, the second implant were also to fail after five years, or even ten years, the recipient would need a second revision at age 75 (or 80)and soon enough that will hardly be too old for a revision surgery, especially if once can be expected to live another 10-15 years. But one's hip might not be able to take a third implant, if there's not enough bone left.

DePuy, a Johnson & Johnson company, recalled its ASR metal-on-metal replacement hip devices globally after the National Joint Registry of England and Wales made public data showing that, within five yearsas opposed to the more standard 15 about 12% of recipients of the hip resurfacing system and about 13% of recipients of the acetabular system needed corrective surgery. If you've been affected by the recall, give us a call.

POST COMMENT

How Much Will I Pay for Vision Care? Being Structurally Sound: Revision Rhinoplasty Procedures Comcast Launches Telefutura HD And Univision HD in The Greater Boston Area Before 2010 FIFA World Cup Visualase: Where you can get the best laser vision correction The basics of laser vision correction Night Vision Binoculars and Rifle Scopes Short listing LCD televisions What May Lead to Low Vision The life changing effects of laser vision correction Vision Shopsters: Biotech Success Rates 2003-2009 Benficial Branded sumvision cyclone Better your life with laser vision correction Barry Lebowitz, Optometrist at Potomac Eye Care, Explains 20/20 Vision