A new DePuy hip lawsuit has joined thousands of other metal-on-metal hip implant lawsuits.

Plaintiff Suzanne L. of Sheridan, Wyo. states that she received a DePuy hip implant in February of 2007 at Sheridan Memorial Hospital. However, after she received this DePuy hip implant, she alleges that she suffered serious medical problems and hip implant complications. And unfortunately, Suzanne’s DePuy hip lawsuit is not alone in these accusations.

DePuy hip implants are a type of metal-on-metal hip implant. Metal-on-metal hip implants are a type of artificial hip joint surgeons used to replace a patient’s hip joint when it wears out due to age, illness, or injury. Older styles of hip implants had metal components, but the moving surfaces of their joint were typically made of polymer, ceramic, or in very old hip implants, ivory. But a number of medical companies, including DePuy, released a variety of metal-on-metal hip implants in the 2000s. Due to the fact that they were based on older hip implant designs, metal-on-metal hip implants were able to exploit a loophole in the FDA’s approval process by arguing metal-on-metal hip implants were “substantially similar” to existing technology. But DePuy hip lawsuits and other metal-on-metal hip lawsuits argue that these newer hip implants are dangerous.

DePuy Hip Lawsuits

DePuy hip lawsuits and similar hip lawsuits against other medical device manufacturing companies allege that metal-on-metal hip implants like DePuy hip implants have special dangers not seen in other devices. Allegedly, the two metal surfaces of the joint grinding together can shave off microscopic flakes of metal. While the cobalt and chromium of metal-on-metal hip implants is usually safe and inert in the implant, when ground into microscopic particles, these metals may more easily dissolve in blood and bodily fluid, forming toxic metal ions, which can allegedly promote inflammation and painful growths called pseudotumors around the implant. DePuy hip lawsuits also allege that metal-on-metal hip implants have a greater failure rate, possibly related to the grinding issue.

When a hip implant fails, surgeons often have to replace them during a procedure called “revision surgery.” Hip revision surgery is more technically challenging than the original hip replacement, because hip replacement requires that surgeons cut out some of the original bone, which is then replaced by the metal-on-metal hip implant. As such, surgeons have less bone to work with during a revision surgery, on top of any inflammation or damage that led to the revision surgery in the first place. Additionally, limping to accommodate pain and inflammation may strain the other hip, causing it to fail and require hip replacement as well.

The individual DePuy Hip Lawsuit is Case No. 0113, filed in the larger DePuy Hip Lawsuit MDL In Re: DePuy Orthopaedics, Incorporated, ASR Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2329, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Western Division.