Washington Injury Law Blog

I came across an interesting blog post by the Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog regardng a recent article in The New York Times aptly titled, “It Must Be Bob. I Hear His Hip Squeaking.” The article discussed people with hip implants, mainly Stryker hip implants, who were told to try new ceramic hip implants but have now developed squeaky hip joints. The Stryker hip implants and their sister implants were promoted as being much more durable than the previous generation of hip implants. But patients hips soon began to squeak, raising concerns that the noises were not just embarrassing and uncomfortable, but foreboding of more serious problems with their hip implants.

One patient has posted a video showing the problem: [youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=qWerMkRAAWg[/youtube]

Prior generations of hip implants, before 2003, had little problems with squeaking. The Times cited a Journal of Arthroplasty which found that 10 patients out of 143 who received ceramic hips from 2003 to 2005, or 7 percent, developed squeaking. Meanwhile, no squeaks occurred among a control group of 48 patients who received hips made of metal and plastic.

Last fall the FDA warned Stryker that it failed to take the steps needed to prevent squeaking and other problems. Many patients have had surgery to replace the squeaky hip implants. Many have hired lawyers to sue Stryker, arguing that these hips never should have been put on the market without proper testing because, as it often happens, Stryker rushed its ceramic-on-ceramic titanium hip replacement onto the market to create a competitive advantage with its competitors.

No one knows what the long term consequences of these problems are. “Catastrophic failure has been a concern in the past, with older ceramic components,” said Dr. James M. Bried, a California surgeon who fears that squeaking might be a harbinger of future difficulties.