Patients have reported that SmartSet HV Cement may fail after knee replacement surgery, causing injury, and requiring revision surgery.

Bone cement is used in joint replacement surgeries to attach a prosthetic joint to a bone. It is used in some joint replacements, but not all.

Bone cements range from high to low viscosity. Many doctors prefer to work with high-viscosity bone cement because the thickness makes it easier to control and it sets faster than lower-viscosity events.

However, more problems are associated with high-viscosity cement.

In any joint replacement, there is always the risk that the bone cement will fail, causing the joint replacement to loosen. Unfortunately, high viscosity is one of the most popular types of bone cement used and may be causing problems for patients, including the SmartSet HV Cement. 

Some patients have reported severe pain with their SmartSet HV Cement after the device has loosened.

Some of the brands of high-viscosity bone cement that are under investigation for possibly causing joint replacement loosening are:

• Cobalt HV Bone Cement (Biomet/DJO Surgical)
• DePuy CMW 1 Bone Cement
• Simplex HV Bone Cement (Stryker/Howmedica)
• SmartSet HV Cement (DePuy)

Signs of Bone Cement Failure

If you had a joint replacement in which one of these cements or another kind of cement was used and you experienced joint loosening, you may have a legal claim.

In the case of knee replacement surgeries, the area that is most likely to be affected by SmartSet HV cement failure is the connection between the tibia bone and the tibial side of the knee replacement implant.

Experts say that the presence of a space no more than two millimeters wide is normal if space does not widen. However, a space larger than two millimeters wide, or a space that slowly expands might indicate problems, including infection and aseptic (non-infected) loosening.

The presence of these spaces and the start of the loosening can be seen in an X-ray, as can the occurrence of the tibial replacement component leaning into the tibial, which is another sign of tibial loosening.

When loosening from bone cement worsens, patients can experience a range of adverse symptoms that can affect their quality of life. These symptoms include:

• persistent joint pain
• newly evident chronic pain
• knee instability
• swelling
• decreased range of motion

Some patients who have experienced joint replacement loosening because of SmartSet HV cement have filed lawsuits aiming to hold the makers of the cement accountable for their physical, financial, and emotional injuries caused by the difficulties they experienced after knee replacement loosening.

Some patients who have experienced knee replacement loosening because of bone cement failure have had revision surgery to correct the problem.

Though this surgery can offer recovery from the problem, revision surgery comes with its own set of risks — patients undergoing revision surgery have a higher risk of infection and complication than patients undergoing an initial joint replacement surgery.

Lawyers are investigating it if may be possible to hold DePuy, the makers of SmartSet HV Cement, liable for injuries caused by SmartSet HV Bone Cement.