Women are more likely to have an artificial hip device fail according to a recent study in the Journal of American Medicine’s Internal Medicine. The research showed that women are more likely to require a repeat surgery within three years than men.
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Each year nearly half a million Americans undergo hip replacement procedures for injuries or to alleviate pain and any loss of mobility. The most common failures include infection, broken bones and often, implant loosening.
The JAMA study was funded by the FDA. It examined over 35,000 hip implant surgeries at 46 different hospitals in the Kaiser Permanente System. Unfortunately, the study did not identify the exact make and model of the failed implants.
Currently there are two major hip implant manufacturers being sued by patients who have had recalled artificial hips: Johnson and Johnson’s De Puy and Stryker. As a hip implant claim lawyer in Miami, I believe that the primary reason that more women experience problems than men may be due to a woman’s smaller bone structure and different bone density.
To compensate for the anatomical differences between men and women as well as various body types, Stryker manufactured and marketed a hip implant device called the Rejuvenate. The Rejuvenate was advertised as a potential alternative to the standard one-size-fits-all hip implant as it provided surgeons with different component sizes to enable a customized fit for each patient.
Tragically, after the Rejuvenate was released, patients began to develop pain, swelling and pseudo tumors. Stryker recently recalled the Rejuvenate, forcing many patients to undergo additional surgeries. Currently, our office is representing a number of victims of these defective hip implants and we have filed one of the first cases in the country against Stryker. We filed our cases in Bergen County, New Jersey where I attended Judge Martinotti’s Initial Case Conference on February 20, 2013. (In re Stryker Rejuvenate Hip Stem and the ABG II Modular Hip Stem Litigation, No. 296).
Simultaneously, a group of Stryker Hip implant lawyers have filed a motion with the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) to have all of the federal claims against Stryker for its Rejuvenate and ABG II hip implants transferred to Minnesota. Currently there are dozens of pending claims on file against Stryker.
Stryker is not the only hip implant company in hot water. Currently, the United States Department of Justice is investigating Johnson and Johnson for its questionable business practices surrounding the marketing of its recalled ASR hip implant. This is not the first time Johnson and Johnson’s conduct has been scrutinized. In 2007, J&J paid $84.7 million in fines as part of a settlement for giving surgeons kickbacks for using their implants. Read the settlement agreement here.
I urge anyone who has a hip implant injury to immediately contact an experienced lawyer for hip cases to preserve their legal rights. Hip implant victims are entitled to compensation for pain and suffering, medical expenses and physical injuries.
