DePuy ASR Hip Lawsuits Filed After Recall of Hip Replacement Implant

At least four product liability lawsuits have been filed in the wake of Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy ASR hip recall that was announced last week. The cases, which allege that the metal-on-metal hip replacement was defectively designed, are likely just the first of many DePuy ASR lawsuits that will be filed as consumers link problems to the recalled hip implant. 

The complaints were filed on Monday by plaintiffs in Arizona, California, Illinois and Virginia. All of the lawsuits allege that the DePuy ASR hip implants were defective and failed following hip replacement, causing the plaintiffs to suffer pain and requiring additional surgery to revise or replace the implants.

Last week DePuy Orthopaedics, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, acknowledged that it was recalling the DePuy ASR Hip Resurfacing Systems and DePuy ASR XL Acetabular Systems due to a high failure rate seen during the years after the artificial metal-on-metal hip was implanted.

According to DePuy, the ASR Hip Resurfacing System fails in about 12% of recipients and the ASR XL Acetabular System fails about 13% of recipients, with the failure rate even higher among women and those with heads smaller than 50mm. With approximately 93,000 of the implants sold, that means that more than 11,000 people are likely to experience problems from DePuy ASR hip replacements.

The DePuy ASR is a metal-on-metal hip replacement system developed in 2005. Health care professionals have increasingly been warning about problems with metal-on-metal hip implants, which can shed metal particles into the body. The particles can damage soft tissue, cause inflammatory reactions and lead to bone loss. The DePuy ASR hip failures appear to be linked to a defective design of the acetabular cup, which is shallower than acetabular cups made by other companies, making it prone to problems.

Shortly after the DePuy ASR was introduced, the FDA began receiving a number of adverse event reports from consumers and physicians, with most cases leading to revision surgery. The hip impant was recalled about a year and a half after the first lawsuit over a Depuy ASR hip was filed.

Following a letter sent by DePuy to physicians in March 2010, which warned about the risk of hip failures, the number of DePuy ASR hip lawsuits mounted in courts throughout the United States. However, with the official recall issued last week, DePuy ASR hip replacement lawyers expect the number of claims filed in the coming months to increase dramatically.

Most of the lawsuits filed involve similar allegations that the metal-on-metal hip implants were not adequately tested by DePuy before being placed on the market. They also claim that DePuy avoided doing clinical trials which could have revealed the problems by having the devices approved by FDA through an expedited approval process that only requires that a medical device be functionally equivalent to a previously-approved device. The lawsuits accuse DePuy of product liability, negligence, and breach of warranty.

Individuals with one of the recalled DePuy ASR hip replacement implants have been advised to contact their doctors for an evaluation to determine whether they be experiencing problems and it an annual re-evaluation has been recommended to monitor for a DePuy ASR hip failure. Symptoms of a defective ASR hip implant can include clicking sounds coming from the device, difficulty walking, a feeling that the implant is not properly in place, and pain in the hip, legs or back. A blood test may also reveal elevated levels of metals, including chromium and cobalt, in the bloodstream.