Metal-on-metal Hip Implants Has Upsurge In Quantity

The metal-on-metal hip replacements manufactured by DePuy, a subsidiary of Johnson & Jonson, is considered as one of the Largest Medical Device Failure, says a report from Cable News Network (CNN).Hip impingement surgery might decrease the number of people getting hip replacement, according to a report from New York Times.

CNN said that Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News has been unceasingly dishing out reports about the case, which was published by the New York Times last Aug. 28, 2010.

The pull-back of around 93,000 implants from the market was mentioned in a published article mainly because of fracturing, dislocation, pseudo tumors and metal particles flaking off and entering the bloodstream.

The recall was not issued until more than two years after the Food and Drug Administration received complaints, Williams says. He says that the FDA has given due course to around 11,000 complaints about metal-on-metal implants, which are not only recall-related cases.

A report from the National Center for Health Statistics indicated that in 2004 there were more than 500,000 hip and knee replacements conducted in the United States and their number was increasing, says CNN. Researchers predicted that if current trends continue, total knee replacements will increase 525% by 2030 and annual costs for knee and hip replacements will reach $62.5 billion by 2015.

There is an increase of number of hip replacement surgery performed on younger men and women, the Surgery.com website reported. The operation itself is being performed repeatedly in more occasions. Hip replacements in the United States will rise to 600,000 by 2015 according to a calculation by one expert.

Artificial implants have short service spans and will require replacement in 10 to 15 years. There are success stories about people with implants regaining active lives, CNN reports.

CNN reports that osteoarthritis is the most widespread form of arthritis and considered the No. 1 cause of pain and disability in the United States.

The National Institutes of Health, Arthritis Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other reputable sources consistently list age followed by weight as the leading causes of osteoarthritis, it says.

Misunderstandings regarding true cause of this disease have resulted in medicines inability to impede its occurrence, despite the introduction of many new drugs and advanced surgical procedures. This has led to a surge in the number of arthritic patients who decided to undergo hip implant such as DePuy pinnacle hip replacement, which has received numerous complaints and prompted distressed users into filing a Pinnacle lawsuit.