Depuy Hip Replacements

FDA unveils plan to track medical devices

The federal Food and Drug Administration has unveiled a plan to track high-risk medical devices.

A Wall Street Journal report on the policy says that it would require the high-risk devices to carry identification numbers. Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA’s medical-device center, described the plan as “a major game-changer” and said the agency plans to ramp up efforts to identify malfunctioning medical devices early.

For a long time, public safety advocates ...

continue reading...

FDA cautions surgeons implanting all-metal joints

Members of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel that recently discussed metal-on-metal artificial hip implants said they wouldn’t recommend that patients get them, although the FDA as a whole has so far stopped short of an official ruling on the devices.

Still, the FDA Website has a section advising orthopedic surgeons who are performing metal-on-metal hip implantation surgery. And the FDA’s recommendations clearly reflect concerns about the devices shedding toxic ...

continue reading...

Use of metal hip implants declining

Use of metal-on-metal hip implants has been declining in recent years, in response to concerns that they may pose a safety risk for patients who receive them.

According to a Bloomberg report, use of the devices peaked in 2006 and 2007, when the metal-on-metal variety accounted for an estimated 30 percent of the market. Now the all-metal implant, with both a ...

continue reading...

FDA panelists wouldn’t recommend metal implants

According to a story on WLFI out of Indiana, most members of a U.S. FDA panel said they would not recommend metal-on-metal implants for patients who needed hip replacement surgery.

The report quotes a physician on the panel as saying: “I do not use metal-on-metal hips, and I can see no reason to do so.”

At the FDA’s request, the 18-member panel of experts met for two days this week to discuss ...

continue reading...

FDA weighs in on dangerous hip implants

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says patients who received Johnson & Johnson’s all-metal hip replacements need more frequent testing, according to Bloomberg.

In light of almost 16,800 reports of problems with all-metal hip implants since 2000, federal regulators hope that precaution will help prevent risky replacement surgery for some recipients. The FDA recommendation was part of a report advising members ...

continue reading...

Flawed FDA approval process results in deaths

A recent report in Scientific American takes a look at a faulty heart device that’s been responsible for at least 20 deaths.

According to the article, implantable defibrillator leads are wires that connect defibrillators – devices similar to pacemakers – to the heart. “Over the past decade, the $10 billion heart device industry has seen several high profile cases of malfunctioning products that posed severe risks to patients,” the article states.

The ...

continue reading...
Page 23 of 32 «...10202122232425...»