ASR Trial Begins January 2013

[Pat Walter]

ASR trial begins amid controversy over uncovered court documents

January 29, 2013

http://www.healio.com/orthopedics/hip/news/online/%7BE406EFEC-4123-4990-BE6C-6466377B2AF1%7D/ASR-trial-begins-amid-controversy-over-uncovered-court-documents

The first lawsuit for the DePuy Articular Surface Replacement (ASR) System in the United States got underway on Jan. 25 in Los Angeles...

...The ASR prosthesis was recalled in August 2010 after the National Joint Registry for England and Wales reported 12% to 13% of patients’ hips treated with the prosthesis would require revision within 5 years...

...During a pretrial hearing on Dec. 3, 2012, Paul Voorhorst, MS, MBA, director of worldwide biostatistics and data management at DePuy Orthopaedics, stated that a 2011 internal investigation conducted by Johnson & Johnson, DePuy’s parent company, revealed 37% of ASR XL hips were estimated to fail within about 5 years. These projections for survivorship of the implants were reportedly never released, according to court documents from the pretrial hearing...

...To date, more than 10,000 lawsuits for failed ASR implants have been filed in state and federal courts regarding the DePuy ASR product. Approximately 93,000 patients worldwide were treated with these prostheses. One-third of the patients are located in the United States...