Another patient has added her IVC filter injury claim to the multidistrict litigation against Cook Medical. This plaintiff, Wendy W., argues that she was never properly informed about the dangers of getting a clot filter implanted and the kinds of side effects they could cause.

Wendy says she was implanted with her Cook Celect Vena Cava Filter in October 2006 in Virginia. She claims that at the time, she wasn’t given all the proper information she needed to make an informed decision about getting that filter implanted.

She filed her claim with the multidistrict litigation, or MDL, over Cook Medical products claiming that the company is liable on multiple counts, such as negligence, negligence per se, failure to warn, design defect, and breach of express and implied warranty.

Medical device injury claims like those currently filed in relation to the clot filter are often brought into an MDL when many patients have similar claims against a company. The purpose of the MDL is to consolidate those claims for streamlined management through the courts. In the case of IVC filter litigation, all those patients argue that the filters are defective and that the manufacturer should be held accountable for the injuries sustained.

One of the biggest problems with a clot filter complication is that it can begin in a patient with no symptoms. Since people don’t have nerve endings in their blood vessels, this enables a filter to pierce through a vein with no direct pain affecting the patient when that occurs.

In some cases, however, the patient will experience unexplained other problems, such as those caused by the filter poking into other organs or blood vessels. As a result of this happening, plenty of patients with IVC filter injuries first notice the problem from back and abdominal pain. Any kind of serious abdominal pain, especially that linked to particular movements or activity, is cause for concern if that same patient has had a filter implanted.

Another common indication of an IVC filter issue is pain in the legs. This may be due to instances of perforation or blocked filters. Both of these can cause leg swelling and resulting pain.

This leg swelling is often written off or ignored because the patient might have originally gotten the filter to address deep vein thrombosis. Plenty of patients with leg swelling will chalk up this side effect to their underlying DVT and allow the problem to get worse. However, if this side effect is ignored, it can become life-threatening.

Only a doctor can determine whether or not a patient’s experience with pain is tied to the filter, but more studies are documenting the experiences of patients with similar complications. One example is from a study shared in the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology Journal about IVC filter perforation. That study specifically named the Cook Celect retrievable filter as one associated with perforation risks. Another study found an increased risk of 30-day mortality in certain patients implanted with an IVC filter.

As this and other studies indicate, the possibility of perforation presents major risks: when the filter penetrates the IVC, this is much like a two or three centimeter needle floating in a patient’s body.

The Clot Filter Lawsuit is Case No. 1:19-cv-00248-RLY-TAB, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana Indianapolis Division.