A Michigan patient says she suffered cobalt poisoning after hip replacement because of a defect in the Pinnacle metal-on-metal hip implant.

Plaintiff Sally K. aims to hold DePuy Orthopedics and Johnson & Johnson accountable for her injuries, claiming that a defect in their device caused her to develop cobalt poisoning after hip replacement. 

Sally says that she underwent a hip replacement surgery on her left hip on or around March 1, 2010, at Pennock Hospital in Hastings, Michigan. She claims that she was fitted with the metal-on-metal Pinnacle Device with a Pinnacle metal insert.

Sally says that after her surgery, she had an adverse reaction to the device because of a defect in the device’s design that caused it to be ineffective and led to cobalt poisoning after hip replacement surgery. 

Sally says that the Pinnacle hip device is designed with a metal ball that fits into a metal socket if it is used with the metal insert, which was the case in Sally’s hip replacement. Allegedly, having a metal component rub directly on another metal component is uncommon among hip implants, because such a combination may cause fretting of the metal, which can then enter a patient’s body and cause metal poisoning.

Sally claims that DePuy and Johnson & Johnson knew or should have known that designing a metal-on-metal hip implant could be dangerous to patients, and knew or should have known that metal-on-metal hip implants have not been common for many years precisely because their design poses a danger.

However, the companies allegedly allowed this device to be released onto the market, a choice which caused danger to patients like Sally and allegedly caused injuries including cobalt poisoning after hip replacement surgery. 

Sally says that she suffered “debilitating pain, discomfort, fluid collections, adverse local tissue reaction to metal-on-metal hip particles and soreness in the are of her left hip implant, thereby negatively affecting her ability to perform activities of daily living.” She says that she had blood tests done after her surgery that showed that she had too high levels of cobalt in her blood, as a result of the cobalt in the hip implant fretting off of her implant and entering her bloodstream.

Sally also claims that because of these injuries, she had to undergo revision surgery to replace her Pinnacle metal-on-metal hip implant with another implant. Sally argues that this surgery further exposed her to injury because revision surgeries are associated with a higher risk of infection and surgical complications than initial joint replacement surgeries are.

Allegedly, DePuy and Johnson & Johnson misled her into believing that the device would be safe and effective, because they advertised it as such, despite its dangers. She claims that had she known that the Pinnacle device was defective and that she would get cobalt poisoning after hip replacement, she would not have consented to have the device used in her surgery. She says the cobalt poisoning left her with severe injuries. 

The Pinnacle Cobalt Poisoning After Hip Replacement Lawsuit is Case No. 3:18-cv-03004-K, in the U.S. District Court Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division.