As of Dec. 15, 2014, more than 67,500 vaginal mesh lawsuits were pending in the complex litigation over vaginal mesh complications.

Vaginal mesh, also called pelvic mesh, transvaginal mesh, bladder slings, and other terms, is a type of surgical implant, designed to repair and support pelvic organs like the vagina, uterus, bladder, and related structures.

Vaginal mesh was derived from older, more general surgical mesh. When medical companies started noticing that surgeons were cutting surgical mesh into specific shapes for pelvic surgeries, medical suppliers began selling surgical mesh pre-cut for such operations as vaginal mesh.

Since vaginal mesh was based on existing surgical mesh technology, manufacturers were able to bypass certain U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, testing protocols — a point which has come up in vaginal mesh lawsuits over alleged vaginal mesh complications.

Vaginal mesh lawsuits have alleged that the material can cause serious complications. This includes mesh erosion, a process when vaginal mesh works its way through the very tissue it is intended to protect, damaging tissue through friction.

Some vaginal mesh lawsuits have also reported mesh embedment, a process by which the body grows new tissue around the mesh, embedding it in the body and causing mesh pain. These complications may require surgical removal.

Additionally, vaginal mesh lawsuits further allege that the makers of vaginal mesh failed to react quickly to reports of serious problems allegedly linked to vaginal mesh.

These vaginal mesh lawsuits allege that the makers of vaginal mesh aggressively promoted the surgical implant as a safer alternative to existing therapies, and aggressively campaigned to skip FDA protocol based on the perceived similarity between vaginal mesh and more generalized surgical mesh.

The litigation over vaginal mesh has taken the form of a multidistrict litigation or MDL. MDLs are a legal process that coordinates tens, hundreds, or in this case tens of thousands of similar lawsuits into a single procedure. MDLs help streamline the legal process by coordinating similar lawsuits together.

Since these cases often hinge on similar evidence and make similar arguments, precedents established can settle key issues that apply to the rest of the lawsuits. In the case of the vaginal mesh MDL, there are a number of them, since multiple companies sold pelvic mesh, and the alleged problems have been reported across a variety of brands and models of vaginal mesh.

There are multiple Vaginal Mesh MDLs, including In Re: American Medical Systems, Inc., Pelvic Repair System Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2325; In re: Ethicon Inc., Pelvic Repair System Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2327; In re: Coloplast Corp. Pelvic Support System Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2387; In re: C.R. Bard, Inc. Pelvic Repair Systems Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2187; all filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of West Virginia.