DePuy Hip Implants Recalled Worldwide

As greater numbers of people experience complications with their DePuy hip implants, more and more lawsuits are being filed around the world each day.
DePuy is a division of corporate giant Johnson & Johnson, and as of mid-January 2011 hundreds of U.S. citizens had retained a DePuy hip attorney and dozens of those had filed a lawsuit against the device manufacturer. It is expected that the earliest “bellwether” DePuy cases will reach trial sometime in 2012, at which point there may be thousands of plaintiffs.

DePuy Hip Complications Worse than Predicted

Approximately 93,000 individuals worldwide have received a DePuy ASR artificial hip, and about 30,000 of those people are living in the United States. The device was recalled in August 2010, and the recall was initiated because studies determined that the DePuy hip implant had a failure rate twice as high as that of competing devices.
However, many doctors and DePuy hip attorneys say that the faulty device is even more prone to failure than that. Newcastle University conducted a study of 500 Irish hip recipients, and Dr. Thomas Joyce observed a failure rate (due to serious hip complications) of 50% over 6 years. The implant was designed to last 20-25 years without problems.
In Ireland, only 3,500 of DePuy’s ASR devices were implanted in patients, but experts predict that 1,400 of them will require revision surgery to fix hip complications caused by the faulty device.
Somewhere between 1,500 and 4,000 DePuy ASR devices were implanted in Canada, however there is no official implant registry in the United States or Canada. This makes it very difficult to determine precisely how many people will be affected by the DePuy hip implant recall.

DePuy Hip Problems May Entail Revision Surgery

The most serious hip complications caused by the defective DePuy device include fracture of the hipbone, dislocation of the hip implant, and loosening of the hip implant. Any of these will require a costly and painful operation to replace the implant—a procedure more involved and dangerous than the original surgery.
As for patients who are able to keep their original implant, they can still suffer an array of unpleasant complications even though these problems may not be severe enough to necessitate a hip revision surgery right away. Anyone who received a DePuy implant is at risk of contracting metallosis, especially cobalt and chromium toxicity, which is linked to the development of tumors and cancer. Metallosis, also known as metal poisoning, can lead to such serious damage that a revision surgery may not even be possible.
Any individual affected by the DePuy hip recall is advised to consult their physician and a DePuy hip attorney as soon as possible. It is important to learn as much as possible about dealing with any existing complications, testing for complications that may occur, and filing a lawsuit against DePuy.