A Cook IVC filter lawsuit claims that defective devices made by the company injure patients.

An IVC (inferior vena cava) filter is a small filter inserted into an artery of the heart and is designed to stop blood clots from moving through the body, possibly causing stroke or loss of circulation. The Cook IVC filter lawsuit says the company failed to warn patients about the risk of complications associated with these devices. 

Cook makes a range of IVC products that have recently come under fire. Patients are claiming that the devices possess a design defect that can pose a danger to patients. Now, a patient in Texas has joined a growing multi-district litigation against Cook, saying that he was implanted with one of Cook’s allegedly defective IVC filters.

Plaintiff Jonathan N. says that he had a Cook Celect Vena Cava Filter implanted into his body on Oct. 7, 2008, at Medical Center Hospital in Odessa, Texas. He says that a defect in the device’s design caused it to not perform as intended and advertised, and caused him injury.

Some IVC filters are designed to be permanent after they are inserted, where other filters are designed to be removable after they are inserted when a patient’s risk of blood clots has gone down. The range of Cook IVC filters in question in the Cook IVC filter lawsuit are a range of IVC filters designed to be able to be removed.

Allegedly, the devices pose a risk of moving from where they are implanted in a variety of ways, including tilting from their intended position, migrating to an entirely different portion of an artery, breaking into pieces and sending metal shards through a patient’s bloodstream, and perforating an artery, causing pain, possible infection, and bleeding.

The devices that patients claim are defective and can cause injury are the Gunther Tulip Vena Cava Filter, the Cook Celect Vena Cava Filter, the Gunther Tulip MRI, and the Cook Celect Platinum.

Patients like Jonathan say that these defects can make the devices unable to be retrieved, as they are designed to do.

In the case of the Gunther Tulip Filters and the Cook Celect filters, the filters are designed in a “tulip shape” instead of a traditional disk. Allegedly, in the case of these filters, the design increased the likelihood that these devices would puncture the aorta and make retrieval of the device unsuccessful.

The Cook IVC filter lawsuit says that Cook knew or should have known that their removable IVC filters had defective designs and could cause injury, but marketed and sold them nonetheless. Allegedly, the company actively advertised the devices as safe, misleading both medical professionals and patients.

The Cook IVC filter lawsuit argues that Cook should have known that their filters caused danger because research suggested that the design for their filters were “more likely than not to perforate the vena cava wall.” Allegedly, the tulip-shaped devices were shown in research to have an especially high risk of causing complications.

The Cook IVC Filter Lawsuit is Case No. 1:18-cv-03738-DLP, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division.