Dialysis Lawsuit Filed in Illinois Over Heart Surgery Injection Trasylol

A new lawsuit has been filed on behalf of two heart surgery patients who received an injection known as Trasylol before their operations to control bleeding. The suit seeks damages for acute renal failure requiring dialysis caused by the injection.

The dialysis lawsuit was filed on September 25, 2008, in St. Clair County Circuit Court, Illinois. One of the plaintiffs in the case received a Trasylol injection in August 1996 and the other in 2005. Both allege that the drug caused their kidneys to fail, requiring dialysis treatment and eventually resulting in death for one of the plaintiffs.

 
Trasylol, known generically as aprotinin, is an injectable drug manufactured by Bayer, which was removed from the market in November 2007. Before it was recalled, the injection was widely used to control bleeding during cardiac bypass surgery to reduce the need for transfusions.

Concerns about Trasylol side effects began to surface in 2006, when the drug was linked to an increased risk of death and kidney failure requiring dialysis. The first warnings about the Trasylol kidney failure risks were added to the drug’s label in December 2006, even though Bayer knew or should have known for some time about the dangers posed by the drug.

Many individuals who receive Trasylol are unaware that they were given the medication before their heart surgery. The first sign of problems often involve a sudden need for dialysis treatment due to kidney failure. Dialysis duplicates the action of normal kidneys, by removing waste products from the blood and using ultrafiltration to remove excess fluid as urine.

A study involving 2,300 people, known as BART, Blood Conservation Using Antifibrinolytics in Randomized Trial, indicated that people treated with Trasylol were over 50% more likely to die than those given alternative anti-blood loss drugs. The final analysis of the data showed that 6% of those on Trasylol died within one month of surgery, compared with 4% of those treated with other drugs.