Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Future of the Zimmer Durom Cup Replacement Hip Implant

By Maxwell Schmickman

Since 2006 over 12,000 hip replacement patients in the United States have been implanted with a Zimmer Durom Cup Replacement component. The one-piece design of these implants makes them radically different from the popular replacement devices of previous decades which were made in three parts. Doctors were impressed by the high success rate enjoyed by the cups in the European market in the three years prior to their approval in the United States. However, when the devices started failing in many American patients, physicians rapidly became alarmed.

Soon after the surgeries began in 2006, patients started revisiting their doctors with complaints. Naturally, they knew it would take a reasonable amount of time for full recovery, but they were experiencing pain well after the expected three-month recovery time. Upon examination, doctors determined that a large number of these patients needed revision surgery to correct problems. These physicians now believe that as many as 5.7% of all those receiving the Durom Cup Replacements prior to July, 2008 will need revisions.

In July, 2008 Zimmer voluntarily pulled their Durom Cup Replacement components from the American market and advised physicians not to use them. By August, however, the devices were back on the market and available to those physicians who completed a new Internet training program to learn the correct technique for implanting them. These new and improved techniques are supposed to cut the failure rate of the implant surgeries dramatically. However, the damage was already done, and many doctors had become skeptical about the Durom Cup Replacement to the point where they refused to take the extra training required for its use.

A lot of the unhappy patients who have experienced pain and suffering due to the loosening of their Durom Cup Replacements have filed lawsuits against the company. In addition, a group of stockholders in Indiana filed a class action suit stating that the company was negligent in informing investors about the problems in a timely manner. Even though the company did a lot of testing on the product and found no defects, they announced that they had set aside $47.5 million to pay these claims. They do admit that they were at fault for not offering adequate training to physicians who were using their product.

Product liability attorneys are encouraging hip replacement patients to file suit if they are still having hip pain more than three months after their surgery, if there has been any loosening in their artificial joint, or if their doctors have recommended revision surgery to correct their problems. Most states have laws on the books that entitle patients to compensation if they have experienced pain, additional medical expense, and loss of wages caused by a defect in the prosthetic device they are using.

The Durom Cup Replacement is available and being used again in the U.S., but many physicians are still having doubts about the procedure and are choosing other options for their own patients. They still believe that the problem lies within the design of the implant and are hesitant to give it another chance. What patients need to look at is the fact that while there has been a 5.7% failure rate for patients using the Durom Cup implant, there has also been a success rate of almost 94.3%. - 16083

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