Sunday, March 1, 2009

Lawsuits Filed for Faulty Durom Cups

By Maxwell Schmickman

Zimmer Durom Cup Hip Implants had been used successfully in Europe for 3 years prior to being approved for use in the United States in 2006. Less than two years later, the device had already been implanted in more than 12,000 American patients, and numerous problems with the implants were already beginning to surface. American doctors started searching for reasons the procedures had failed and pinpointed the cup as a defective product that was prone to problems.

In most U.S. states, laws are in place to help patients who suffer due to defective prosthetic devices. The laws are designed to compensate them for pain, medical expenses, and the loss of wages caused by their problems with orthopedic procedures resulting from a malfunction of a prosthetic device. Zimmer, while not admitting to producing an inferior product based on its success rate in Europe, voluntarily pulled the cup from the U.S. markets in July, 2008 pending further investigation.

By using Google to search the Internet for "Zimmer Durom Cup Lawsuits" you can find many websites of attorneys who feel that patients have a case against Zimmer and offer to help them file lawsuits. The number of implant failures continues to grow, and these attorneys who have taken it upon themselves to become involved truly believe that Zimmer is at fault. Physicians tend to agree and estimate that hundreds of the devices will fail within the next few years.

Physicians who have already performed exploratory surgeries to determine the cause of their patients' problems have discovered that many of the cups have loosened a great deal over time. In fact, one doctor reported that he found a cup that had loosened so much that it popped from its socket when he touched it. In other patients surgeons have found that the device has actually migrated a short distance within the body. Zimmer cites the success of the cup in Europe as basis for its belief that there is nothing defective about the device, but physicians believe that almost 6% of all Durom Cups will fail and need revision surgery within the next couple of years.

Zimmer stockholders take the position that Zimmer should have announced a suspension of U.S. sales before January 22, 2008 instead of waiting until July. Because of this belief, they have filed a class action lawsuit in Indiana requesting damages for those investors who purchased stock between January 22 and July, 2008 when the product was finally pulled from the market.

Zimmer still pleads its case that its Durom Cup is not to blame for the surgical failures in the United States. Instead they contend that physicians did not receive adequate training for doing the procedure. Even so, in October, 2008, Zimmer announced that it had reserved $47.5 million to pay claims won in lawsuits against it. In July it was shown that the failure rate of cup implants could be as high as 5.7%. Zimmer states that this money is not being reserved for all patients and revisions but only for "revisions associated with surgeries that predate the company's voluntary suspension and which also occur within two years of the original surgery date." The resolution of this problem remains to be seen. - 15266

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