Our firm filed the first Exactech hip implant lawsuit in June 2021 shortly before the recall notice to physicians. Two articles had been published in medical journals in 2020 reporting the failure of an unusually high number of Exactech Connexion GXL polyethylene hip liners. One of the articles suggested that there might be a manufacturing problem with the implants and that the authors of the article had notified the company.
Exactech did not notify surgeons until June 2021 of the potential failure problems with the implants and letters did not go out to patients with the implants until 2022. Many patients with Exactech implants still have not been notified. The notifications to patients recommend that they return to their surgeons for an examination and x-rays to see if the implants have started to fail.
If the polyethylene liner starts to fail and deteriorate it can cause damage to the bone called osteolysis. When the liners start to fail plastic particles shed from the liner and the body identifies the particles as foreign substances and responds with deterioration of the bone. This osteolysis of the bone can require reconstructive surgery of the pelvis and the femur. Severe bone damage from osteolysis can cause difficulty in rehabilitation and physical function after the bad hip is removed.
Exactech has also recalled knee and ankle implants with the same polyethylene as a result of early failure of those implants.
Our jury trial is set in the Florida state court in Alachua County, the headquarters of Exactech. That makes it easier for us to call the company employees and scientists into the courtroom to be held accountable. We are now in the pretrial process of discovery in which the company has to produce its internal company documents showing what the company knew about problems with its implants and why they sold them in the first place or did not remove them from the market earlier.
The medical articles identifying the problem with the implants and the danger to patients were published in early 2020 but the authors discussed the issue with the company in 2019 when they were writing the articles. Patients were not notified until over two years later. During this time many patients likely were developing dangerous osteolysis in their bones unaware that in essence they had a ticking time bomb in their hips.
We should have more answers in the next few months as we receive the internal company documents in discovery. I will continue to report as we receive more information. If you or a loved one has an Exactech hip, knee, or ankle implant, please contact me for a free evaluation of your case. If we accept your case, there are no fees or costs owed unless we win compensation for you out of which to pay those expenses.
Admitted to practice law in all federal multidistrict litigation courts, the California State Bar and the Florida Bar. His philosophy is to provide aggressive, quality representations and seek fair compensation for individuals and their families who have suffered injury, death, or sexual abuse.
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