Stryker Metal Hip Recall

There is a quiet Stryker Metal Hip Recall underway, without much fan-fare after complications were highlighted by a significant number of early hip implant failures were found in national registries and in medical studies.

Howmedica Osteonics Corp., and its subsidiary Stryker Orthopaedics, announced a Stryker LFit v40 hip recall last year involving certain large-diameter femoral heads sold before 2011.

In the recall notice, Stryker admitted that a higher-then-expected number of patients were developing early hip implant failure with trunnion failure, metal wear, adverse tissue reactions and other serious complications.

Why the Stryker Metal Hip Recall?

Stryker Orthopedics makes the popular LFit Anatomic CoCr (cobalt and chromium) V40 femoral head line of hip implants. This highly versatile metal head is an interchangeable “ball” component for total hip replacements that can be connected to several Stryker metal hip stems, including the Accolade TMZF, Accolade 2, Meridian, and Citation models.

Stryker recalled over 42,500 metal hip implants because a metal part that connects the hip to the femur can develop severe metal corrosion, loosen, and dislocate, a side effect known as “taper lock failure” that always needs painful revision surgery.

FDA Stryker Metal Hip Recall

Australian regulatory officials announced a hazard alert for Stryker hip implant taper lock failures in August 2016.

In November, the FDA announced a recall for certain Stryker LFIT V40 Femoral Heads, a metal “ball” part of the hip joint, manufactured from 2002 to 2011.

What is Taper Lock Failure?

The LFIT V40 is designed to lock onto a femoral hip stem with a metal part called a trunnion. This tunnion interfaces with a metal-on-metal connection that may corrode and snap within a few years, causing catastrophic hip failure or spontaneous hip dislocation.

What is Metal Corrosion?

Since the metal hip implants are made from dissimilar metal alloys, metal corrosion like rust, could be a devastating problem with metal hip implants. Metal debris in the hip joint causes pain, local inflammation leading to soft-tissue growths called pseudotumors, and get into the bloodstream causing metallosis or metal poisoning.

Alabama Stryker Hip Lawsuit

David Campbell recently filed his Stryker hip lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Campbell claims in his product liability lawsuit, that fretting and corrosion of his Stryker hip implant occurred because of a defective design of the Accolade and LFit V40 components.

According to Campbell, a Stryker Accolade TMZF hip stem was implanted together with a Stryker LFit Anatomic V40 Femoral Head in 2010. His Stryker hip implant failed because of trunnionosis, fretting and corrosion from the cobalt and chromium femoral head grinding against the Accolade hip stem.

Campbell developed severe pain affecting his mobility, and soft tissue damage that occured from metallosis. Campbell required painful, lengthy and complicated hip revision surgery in 2015, to remove the damaged and failing hip parts.

Stryker ABG and Rejuvenate Lawsuits

Stryker over the past few years has already paid over $1 billion in settlements to more than 6,000 patients who were injured by another one of their popular metal hip implant that corroded, the recalled the ABG II and Rejuvenate hips. The settlement provided base payouts of $300,000 per hip replacement that required revision surgery.

Injured by Stryker Metal Hip?

If you think you may have a Stryker V40 Head or a Stryker Accolade TMZF stem and are experiencing pain potentially caused by metal corrosion or have suffered a spontaneous dissociation necessitating full revision and emergency care, please call Dr Shezad Malik Law Firm at 214-390-3189.