FDA Panel Meeting To Assess How Metal-on-Metal Hip Implant Patients Should Be Monitored Begins Today
June 27th, 2012 tmccoy
Starting today and then into tomorrow, the Food and Drug administration will be meeting with orthopedic experts to talk about what to do about metal on metal hip devices. Metal on metal hip devices have a much higher failure rather than those that are made of plastic or ceramic. William Maisel, the FDA’s chief scientist for medical devices believes that the only result coming out of these meetings will be more recommendations for how often doctors should follow-up with patients who receive these metal on metal hip implants and what testing should be done at these follow-up visits.
Each year, about 285,000 hip replacements are performed. Over the past 10 years, metal on metal devices were chosen more often, especially for younger and more active patients because they were thought to last longer than other types of hip implants – such as those made from plastic or ceramic.
However these doctors seem to have made the wrong choice when implanting metal in metal in so many people. Doctors have been seeing problems, including pain, tissue damage, revision surgeries, cancer, and heart, kidney nerve and thyroid damage. Metal on metal devices may fall at up to FOUR times the rate of other materials, and cause problems for ladies.
The FDA does not plan to ban these devices. The FDA is likely to look at actions taken by the health agencies of other countries, such as in the UK, which declared that people implanted to metal on metal hips should have follow-up care of the rest of their lives.
Source: USA Today
