Attorney David Szerlag is providing free consultations to people in the Boston area who had Stryker Rejuvenate products implanted during hip replacement surgery. You can contact him for your free consultation here if you had your hip replacement surgery at Newton-Wellesley or another Boston-area hospital.
David and our Stryker litigation team have filed several lawsuits against Stryker Orthopaedics (Stryker) on behalf of clients who needed revision surgery due to the defective design of Stryker hip implant products, specifically Rejuvenate modular neck and stem components and ABGII modular neck and stem components. Revision surgery involves removing the Stryker parts and replacing them with different hip implants.
Because the Stryker stem is implanted into the femur (upper leg bone), this surgery is extremely invasive.
The severe metal poisoning (chromium and cobalt) experienced by some of David’s clients has caused tissue and bone death, causing pain that is not fully relieved with revision surgery and permanent gait issues.
The Stryker Rejuvenate Recall Due to Product Defect
In July of 2012, Stryker recalled its Rejuvenate and ABGII modular neck and stem components because of reports of corrosion leading to the release of chromium and cobalt ions into the blood and tissue, and ultimately hip replacement system failure. An image showing this corrosion is above.
Unlike other hip replacement systems, the Stryker Rejuvenate system is modular, with separate stem (implanted into the femur) and neck components. The neck is inserted into a ball and acetabular cup (also referred to as the “head”), which is implanted in the hip.
The Stryker neck is chrome and cobalt (CoCr) and the stem is titanium (a combination of the material characteristics of TMZF (Ti-12Mo-6Zr-2Fe) with a plasma sprayed coating of commercially-pure Ti and PureFix HA). The complaints allege that the proprietary titanium alloy used to make the stem did not resist the effects of corrosion and fretting, as the company had advertised in its marketing, but allowed significant corrosion and fretting, leading to metal poisoning from chromium and cobalt ions being released into the blood and surrounding tissue and system failure.
The lawsuits David and the team filed against Stryker allege that their clients suffered severe pain as the Stryker system failed and that they required revision surgery. During the surgery, evidence of severe metal poisoning and one or more of the following was found: the presence of milky, turbid fluid in the area of the Stryker Rejuvenate hip implants; large pseudotumor formation; soft tissue necrosis (death); muscle loss and/or bony necrosis of the femur, where the Rejuvenate stem was implanted.
David Szerlag is lead attorney for our Stryker litigation team and has offices in the Boston, MA area. He represents injured clients nationwide and has won millions, including over $40 million for clients injured by another unsafe medical product. For more information about compensation, see Stryker Rejuvenate Recall Lawsuit Lawyers.