What’s Not Hip About Hip Implants

Want to know what's not hip about him implants? The number of complaints about them received by the FDA. Since January, an investigation by the New York Times reveals, the federal agency has seen more than 5,000 reports about several widely used devices known as metal-on-metal hip. That, the Times reports, is more than the agency had received about those devices in the previous four years combined. What's going on? Most of the complainers are people who have had an all-metal hip removed because of problems after just a few years, instead of the 15 years that the devices are said to be good for. The paper reports that hip replacement is one of the most common procedures in the United States and, until a recent sharp decline, all-metal implants accounted for nearly one-third of the estimated 250,000 replacements performed each year. The A.S.R., or Articular Surface Replacement, was recalled last year by Johnson & Johnson and accounted for 75 percent of the complaints reviewed by the Times. The good news is that  problems with the hip implants are not life-threatening. The bad news is that some patients have suffered crippling injuries caused by tiny particles of cobalt and chromium that the metal devices shed as they wear.

Read more in the New York Times.