There are almost 1 million knee and hip replacement procedures performed in the United States every year. A rising number of those are re-replacing artificial knees and hips that are causing patients a world of trouble. This is obviously a problem and the medical community is trying to do something about it.
Under pressure from doctors and professional associations, The Zimmer Holdings company has suspended production the Durom Cup, a part of a replacement hip, that has caused numerous problems for patients.
The New York Times reports that the U.S. is far behind other developed countries in following up on joint replacement patients to catch faulty technology before it affects too many. Zimmer Holdings’ Durom Cup is one example of how the medical industry did not think twice about the quality and functionality of its technology before using it on thousands of patients.
Eight years ago, a similar situation arose. The same doctor who put the pressure on Zimmer Holdings, Dr. Lawrence Dorr, received an alarming number of complaints from patients who had a replacement from Sulzer Orthopedics Company. Only after 3,000 patients had received the Sulzer replacement did doctors learn the fact that the replacement was faulty and dangerous. However, in Sweden where they keep much closer track of joint replacement patients using a national database, it only took 30 complaints before they realized the replacement was faulty.
The moral we should glean from Zimmer Holdings’ Durom Cup and the Sulzer Orthopedics cases is that keeping track of patients in a national system is a good idea. It will help patients, both financially and in their health, and it will save doctors’ time in dealing with patients who should be on the road to recovery but are suffering worse than before their joint replacement surgery. The only people it could hurt are the companies selling faulty equipment.
Source: New York Times