subject: Problems On Hip Replacement To Be Faced By Depuy [print this page] In behalf of patients who had hip replacement implants, law firms in the US, UK and Australia have currently initiated court action against DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc. DePuy is a subsidiary company of Johnson and Johnson, which issued a worldwide recall of their products.
With approximately 93,000 recipients worldwide, the ASR XL Acetabular System and the ASR Hip Resurfacing System were recalled after data revealed that the devices fail prematurely in one out of eight people who have them. These two implant designs have been manufactured and marketed since 2003.
The Australian market for these DePuy devices were subjected of a total pullout in December 2009. In August 2010, DePuy carried out a worldwide recall. From 2008 until the recall of the products, the Food and Drug Administartion (FDA) havecompiled damning reports against the devices from patients who needed to undergo another hip replacement surgery.
The Director of the National Joint Replacement Registry in Australia, Dr. Stephen Graves, says It is a complete untruth that DePuy did not have reason to withdraw the ASR before now; we have been telling them since 2007, but they allowed it to be used on thousands of people.
Johnson and Johnson have been charged with compensatory claims by their patrons, legal specialists say. They were the suffering victims of DePuy product failures and defects, among them displacements, fractures and loosening.
Extreme cases happen wherein the hip products completely fail, resulting in more critical heath issues. This occur when:
the device is not attached to the bone correctly;
the unit is dislocated and misaligned;
the bone around the implant is fractured.
Additionally, the malfunctioning hip devices may create an accumulation of toxic metal into the patients bloodstream. Pseudotumors may also be developed in the body tissues.
With claims for compensation piling up globally, DePuy should pay attention to these the hip replacement problems experienced by its patients.
