Johnson & Johnson and plaintiff attorneys are negotiating a procedure for preserving and handling company’s recalled hip implant devices after patients get them replaced through surgeries. J&J’s DePuy Orthopaedics unit recalled the implants on Aug. 26, after researchers found a second operation, or “revision surgery,” was needed after five years at rates higher than the company expected. Doctors had implanted 37,000 ASR XL Acetabular System devices.
The implants and tissue removed are important evidence in the individual lawsuits by DePuy patients. The protocol for handling and analyzing the explants, will help document excessive metal wear of the device and the destructive tissue damage caused by the debris.
The devices, known as metal-on-metal implants, had defective designs that caused cobalt and chromium debris resulting in tissue death, fractures, and other injuries known as metalosis.
Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed in federal court and state courts in California and New Jersey. Federal cases filed around the country are being transferred to Toledo.
J&J was “negligent in marketing and selling ASR implants despite knowing that the joints would more likely than not fail prematurely as compared to other prosthetic hip implants and expose patients to unreasonably high risk of serious bodily injury,” according to a recent complaint.
The case is In re: DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. ASR Hip Implant Products, 10-md-2197, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio (Toledo).
