A patient has filed a hip replacement defect lawsuit against Howmedica Osteonics Corporation in light of a Stryker LFIT V40 recall.

Plaintiff Ricki P. says that she was implanted with an LFIT Anatomic CoCr V40 Femoral Head on her right hip around April 17, 2007 in the Magee Women’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. She says that with the hip implant procedure, she was fitted with the Accolade II femoral hip as part of her hip replacement.

She claims that because of defects in the design of the device that caused her injury, she had the device surgically removed on June 15, 2018, at UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside in Pittsburgh, and had the system replaced with a different hip replacement device.

Stryker Defects

Ricki aims to hold Howmedica accountable for physical and emotional injury caused by the device’s alleged defects, as well as for economic loss she says she sustained as a result of her injury, allegedly caused by the Stryker LFIT V40 hip system.

Ricki’s Stryker lawsuit joins a growing multidistrict litigation against Howmedica over the Stryker hip implant. Claims against the company grew in light of a Stryker LFIT V40 Recall. Recently, the company recalled a number of Stryker hip replacement devices following reports that the device was causing patient injuries.

The LFIT V40 femoral head is made of metal, and was designed to be able to work with a number of other implant parts, depending on the needs of the patient. However, when combined with other hip replacement parts also made with metal, patients say that these metal components rub against one another and can cause metal to be shed off of the hip replacement and into a patient’s bloodstream.

According to Ricki and other patients in the Stryker LFIT V40 recall MDL, the metal fretting can release metal ions and debris into the patient’s surrounding tissue and bloodstream, causing toxicity, infection, metallosis and other complications.

If the metal pieces rub together enough, allegedly the device can begin to not fit together properly, causing pain and difficulty moving. Patients can experience symptoms like pain, swelling, inflammation, redness of the joints, and difficulty with motion.

Allegedly, the hip replacement devices can being to fail quickly after they were implanted.

Claims of Insufficient Testing

Patients in the Stryker LFIT V40 recall multidistrict litigation claim that the Stryker hip replacement system was not subjected to sufficient testing before it was released onto the market, thus exposing many patients to risks associated with the device.

Allegedly, the device was approved via a fast-track approval process, which allows devices to be released onto the market without pre-market study if they are “substantially equivalent” to devices already on the market. However, patients say that the Stryker hip system is not substantially equivalent to devices on the market because it incorporates two metal pieces where the devices that had already been approved had a metal component rubbing on a plastic one.

Patients say that the metal-on-metal system had not been properly tested before it was released onto the market, and they are now suffering the consequences.

Ricki’s Stryker LFIT V40 Recall Lawsuit is Case No. 1:18-cv-12559-IT, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Her Stryker metal hip lawsuit is joining MDL No. 2768, where it will stand alongside other Stryker LFIT claims alleging similar complications.