A Stryker V40 Lawsuit has been filed by a man and his wife who claim he developed metal poisoning that required a hip revision surgery.

Plaintiff Charles H. was implanted with an Accolade TMZF Plus stem and a Stryker LFIT V40 femoral head in his left hip on June 29, 2006.

In 2015, he says, he “suffered a traumatic failure of the hip stem and began experiencing significant pain and lack of function in the area of the subject device,” says the Stryker V40 lawsuit.

Diagnostic tests showed the “head of the stem was displaced and/or fractured.”

Charles underwent revision surgery on June 26, 2015. His doctor “observed, among other things, evidence of extensive metallosis within the tissue and an exposed portion of the femoral component. The trunnion of the stem showed signs of gross damage.”

Stryker V40 Lawsuit Blames Maker Howmedica for Failed Design

The Stryker V40 lawsuit contends the “Accolade Hip System and related components were unreasonably dangerous by virtue of design defects” that contravened any assurance that the system “would not corrode, erode, deteriorate, and/or induce severe metal toxicity in the patient.”

Among other issues, the hip system allegedly suffered “poor design of the taper neck junction between stem and neck, such that micro-motion was predictable.” The Stryker V40 lawsuit also cites incompatibility of the TMZF titanium alloy with the metals in other parts of the system.

The Stryker V40 lawsuit also contends “poor design of manufacturing practices such that the taper neck junction between the neck and stem do not ‘fit’ the way they were intended.”

The combination of those faults led to small metal pieces shedding inside Charles’s body, “causing soft tissue and bony necrosis, pain and premature failure of the device.”

Defendant Howmedica is accused of knowing the dissimilar metals performed poorly together because the new metal-on-metal hip system was designed based on another failed metal-on-metal hip system.

The company “either suppressed or ignored these reports and marketed the Accolade Hip System anyway, knowing these two dissimilar metals when utilized in various hip implant devices were performing poorly in the market and causing harm to patients,” claims the Striker V40 lawsuit.

Simply put, “the Accolade Hip System and related components installed in the hip of Plaintiff Charles H. herein were not compatible with human tissue and bone.”

Charles and his physician trusted that Howmedica provided adequate warnings and precautions pertaining to the hip system components. The manufacturer allegedly had additional knowledge of the risks, and if “Howmedica provided adequate warnings, the Accolade Hip System and related components would not have been implanted” in Charles or used by his physician.

The Stryker V40 lawsuit contends that with full knowledge of the risks associated with the hip system, his doctor would either have not recommended the device or would have at least given Charles adequate warnings and obtained informed consent.

The Stryker V40 Lawsuit is Case No. 3:17-cv-03054-LTS in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, Central Division.