New York, NYThe medical community is expressing concern over severe tissue injury and bone damage resulting from metal on metal hip replacements. Notwithstanding the severity of pain and inconvenience experienced by people who have suffered health problems after receiving this type of implant, it could be a significant problem in terms of the number of people affected.
According to a report in the New York Times, approximately one third of 250,000 hip replacements done annually in the US involve metal on metal implants.
The cause of the problem is not yet clear, but could include poor implant technique or design flaws with the implants themselves, or a combination thereof. What is evident, however, is the fact that the devices can begin to wear quickly, and consequently generate large volumes of metallic debris, such as atomic-size particles of metals like chromium and cobalt. These particles are then absorbed by tissue or enter the bloodstream, and can cause severely painful inflammatory reactions in the groin area, as well as death of tissue in the area of the hip joint and loss of surrounding bone.
The New York Times reports "A recent editorial in a medical journal for orthopedic surgeons, The Journal of Arthroplasty, urged doctors to use the metal-on-metal devices only with "great caution, if at all."
Several leading hospitals in the US have already had patients undergo surgery to have the metal on metal implants replaced due to associated health problems.
