A husband and wife have filed a Stryker hip replacement lawsuit after the husband’s hip system allegedly failed.

Plaintiff David H. says he underwent right hip implant surgery in May 2009. He was fitted with a Stryker LFIT Anatomic CoCr V40 femoral head and a Stryker Accolade TMZF femoral stem.

In December 2017, David claims, he had the LFIT V40 removed due to the hip implant causing him to suffer from metallosis, a metal poisoning caused by the shedding of small metal shards into nearby tissue. He says he had to file a Stryker hip replacement lawsuit to compensate him for these severe injuries.

The Stryker hip replacement lawsuit alleges David has suffered from severe injuries and economic loss due to the failed implant, while his wife is dealing with the loss of his services and loss of consortium.

Stryker Hip Replacement Lawsuit Alleges Negligence

Stryker sold the LFIT V40 femoral head and its Accolade TMZF femoral stem as a hip implant system that worked together. But plaintiffs like David say that micro-motion of the components causes fretting, which promotes corrosion.

According to the Stryker hip replacement lawsuit, “The material combination of a titanium alloy stem with a cobalt-chromium femoral head (like the LFIT V40) has been observed to cause corrosion.”

Stryker allegedly should have known the differing metals would cause severe corrosion and predispose the hip implant to prematurely fail. Patients with failed hip implants are forced to undergo complicated and risky revision surgery.

The Stryker hip replacement lawsuit contends that even though the company knew pairing dissimilar metals at a junction subject to movement would result in wear and fretting, the company continued to market the hip system as one that would not fret or corrode.

Stryker Marked by Recalls

In August 2016, Stryker issued a voluntary recall of certain lots of the LFIT V40 heads because of a “higher than expected” number of taper locks failures that could lead to several “potential hazards,” including:

• The femoral head dislocating from the hip stem
• Hip stem trunnions fracturing
• Excessive metal debris
• Excessive wear debris

The recall notice indicated that patients could experience an inflammatory response, adverse local tissue reaction, dislocation, or periprosthetic fracture, which is a broken bone around the implants’ components.

Despite the seriousness of these issues that could lead to the need for revision surgery, critics say Stryker’s recall notification minimized the gravity of the problem and did not instruct surgeons to notify patients of the recall or direct them to follow up with at-risk patients.

The recall notice said, “implanted patients with LFIT Anatomic CoCr V40 femoral heads as described above should continue to be followed for the normal protocol established by his, her surgeon.”

Most surgeons don’t require a follow-up beyond the first year or two following successful hip implantation. The Stryker hip replacement lawsuit says because hip implant failures caused by the V40 femoral heads are seen years later, most patients would not return to their surgeons in a timely manner to mitigate tissue damage, metal poisoning, or to prevent catastrophic failure.

The Stryker Hip Replacement Lawsuit is Case No. 1:18-cv-10358-IT and is part of the Stryker LFIT MDL, In re: Stryker LFIT V40 Femoral Head Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2768, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.