Depuy Lawsuit

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Hi! If you’re closely following the financial and the healthcare world you’ve probably heard of the Depuy Lawsuit. In a nutshell, the company has produced faulty hip replacement devices that caused further health complications to people who have received them. But there are some things hard to understand about the specifics of why these prosthetics failed which are either just lightly mentioned on finance articles or mentioned to great detail in health articles – while using words that only a health expert can understand. So, to share some light in all of this, we decided we would combine our resources and expertise and try to come up with an easy to understand explanation of what caused the device to fail. The hip joint is a simple ball and socket joint. The base of the hip has a socket and the top of the thigh bone is in form of a ball that fits perfectly into it. When this joint is damaged, people are fitted with a hip replacement device that replaces the bone socket with an artificial counterpart. But it’s natural that with the friction between the two parts debris sheds from them and accumulates in the body, causing infection and swelling. Also, with years of use the joint becomes looser, and in these two cases the only solution is to remove the implant and replace it with a new one. In the DePuy case, the implant was made entirely out of metal, which improves movement and lubrication but creates a lot more debris. So the life span of the DePuy hip replacement devices went from the average fifteen years to less than five for one out of every eight patients. And that’s why there was a recall, and not a subsequent lawsuit. Thanks.