Los Angeles, CACR Bard, a manufacturer of inferior vena cava (IVC) filters, has agreed to a confidential settlement in a defective products lawsuit just six days before heading to trial. The case, filed in Nevada by plaintiff Kevin Phillips, alleged that Bard’s IVC Filter, known as the Recovery Filter System ("RFS"), was defectively designed and manufactured, and that the company failed to adequately warn of the risks inherent with the device. According to court documents, the RFS, “has a high fracture and migration rate as compared to other IVC filters, and these defects can cause serious injury or death.”
Phillips was implanted with Bard’s RFS on August 4, 2005. “It subsequently failed and migrated to his heart, perforating his heart and causing severe and life-threatening complications requiring emergency open-heart surgery on April 30, 2010, and resulting in various economic and non-economic damages,” court documents state.
In August, 2011, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received a personal injury report of a patient requiring hospitalization due to the breakage of an implanted Bard inferior vena cava (IVC) Filter, specifically a G2 IVC Filter. According to the report, the fracture of IVC arm was found on CT scan. This incident, which is not isolated, came after an FDA- issued warning in August 2010, citing problems with retrievable IVC filters including hematomas. In a study published in 2010 in the Annals of Vascular Surgery, migration/tilt was higher in Bard filters compared to other filters.
The reported problems with the BARD IVC filters include a high rate of perforation of the vena cava resulting in perforation of the surrounding tissue, intestines, spine, vertebrae and arteries.
IVC filters are small, spider-like devices which are surgically inserted into the inferior vena cava to prevent blood clots from reaching the lungs. But these devices can suffer from fatigue, causing them to fail and fracture, ultimately migrating through the body causing damage which could be life-threatening.
Complications due to a failure of an IVC filter can include pulmonary embolus, severe and constant pain in the chest, heart or other parts of the body, respiratory distress, tissue perforation, organ perforation, vessel perforation, and hemorrhage.
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IVC Filter Lawsuit Help Center
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Marty Wheeler
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Several drs told me how lucky I am to be alive, and didn't know how I lived... I hope ivc filters are taken off the market. I believe the misinformation and lack of knowledge of the product is severly dangerous alone.
Carrie Johnston
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