Everyone involved in Zimmer Durom Cup hip implant surgeries in the United States, from company stockholders to implant patients to physicians are still unhappy with the way Zimmer Holdings, Inc. handled its American sales. Although many of these people were demanding a product recall after the device failed in a large number of patients, Zimmer has been clinging to the previous reputation established by successful surgeries in Europe instead of being quick to act on the problems that began to crop up in the U.S.
It was January, 2008 when Zimmer first realized that there were problems with the implants. However, they didn’t announce the information to the public and suspend the sales of the device until July. Because the implants had worked so successfully in Europe, they found it hard to believe that they could be the cause of the problems in the U.S. Rather than take them off the market while they investigated possible causes, they chose to keep them there until they had more information about what was causing patients to need revisions so quickly.
Zimmer employees did a detailed study of the cases of 3,100 patients who had been given a Durom Cup implant. Their findings indicated that there was no problem with the technology used to build the implants. Instead they concluded that the problem lay in the fact that the surgeons who had performed the procedure were still using older implant methods that had worked with the devices that had preceded the cup. With the Durom Cup, however, surgeons needed to learn more precise methods prior to ever attempting to do an implant. Without this training, they were unable to perform successful surgeries.
Zimmer never issued a formal recall of the Durom Cup, because they found no evidence of any of the failures being caused by defects within the device. They are planning to get the implant back on the market just as soon as they come up with a way to train doctor’s to do the hip replacement surgery with the precision that is necessary.
Part of the problem resulting in the public demand for recall is that no follow-up procedures were put in place by Zimmer in order to track the progress of patients using their implants. Some may argue that it isn’t their job to police the product after it has been implanted, but others feel that if they made it, they should continue to be responsible for its performance.
Doctors are convinced that the problem with the hip replacements lies in the defective technology of the Durom Cup and not themselves. Similar problems related to a knee replacement device which is also manufactured by Zimmer has left them skeptical about using any Zimmer products. A knee replacement device is still being used in the U.S. even though it was banned in Austria several years ago because of its high number of failures. Doctors are getting afraid of trusting Zimmer technology as its reputation has become tarnished.
Zimmer holdings has released a recall of their Zimmer Durom cup hip implant. There are Zimmer hip lawsuits pending in multiple states across the US. If you or a loved on has been subject to a Zimmer Durom implant, then you may want to contact a Zimmer Hip Lawyer to see if you have a case.
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