FDA Probing Safety of Metal-on-Metal Hip Implants

FDA Probing Safety of Metal-on-Metal Hip Implants

Hip Replacement Front View 3D Graphic

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, June 26 (HealthDay News) -- While thousands of Americans have benefited from hip replacements over the years, problems with metal-on-metal implants can lead to troubles requiring surgery to replace defective devices, experts say.

Specifically, experts say, tiny fragments of metal can shear off from these joints, causing chronic pain or infection and raising levels of metals in the bloodstream. Experts estimate that more than 500,000 Americans have received a metal-on-metal hip joint, mostly between 2003 and 2010.

Worry over the failure rate of the implants, and the speed at which they were initially approved for the U.S. market, has led to a special two-day session, beginning Wednesday, by experts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

[Read: Shorter Hospital Stays, More Readmissions After Hip Replacements.]

"Data from recent studies and from FDA's own review show some patients experiencing complications, including the need for additional surgeries, which could be attributed to metal-on-metal hip implant devices," said FDA spokeswoman Michelle Bolek.

Since 1999, almost 17,000 problems with these devices have been reported to the FDA. Of these, more than 12,000 were reported last year alone.

According to the agency, the problems with metal-on-metal implants are about the same as those seen with polyethylene and ceramic implants, except for the specific risks caused by the metal itself.

But others say that when it comes to complications, metal-on-metal implants are in a class of their own. Writing earlier this month in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Joshua Rising of the Pew Charitable Trusts, and colleagues said that "there is now compelling evidence that these implants fail at a higher rate than hip prostheses made of other materials; indeed, one type of metal-on-metal hip has a failure rate of nearly 50 percent at 6 years."

Responding to these concerns, the FDA panel is considering the risks and benefits of metal-on-metal implants and what might be needed to monitor the health of patients who have them.

Of the estimated 400,000 hip replacements done in the United States each year, 27 percent involve metal-on-metal devices, according to the FDA.

Critics, including an independent panel of experts at the Institute of Medicine, have noted that metal-on-metal implants may have been approved too quickly under the FDA's "fast-track" program for medical devices.

Responding to concerns, in May 2011 the FDA ordered manufacturers to carry out "post-market" studies, tracking the safety of metal-on-metal hip implants in recipients. But in the NEJM article, Rising and colleagues noted that most of these studies have yet to begin and their first results will take years to arrive.

The FDA's Bolek made it clear that the advisory panel meeting is not a regulatory meeting and is not intended to look at the process that brought the devices to the market, or to deal with any planned or current post-marketing studies.

Metal-on-metal devices have already been recalled twice. In 2008, a device from manufacturer Zimmer, the Durom Acetabular Component, was recalled because instructions were not clear.

[Check it Out: Today in Photos From U.S. News World Report.]

And in 2010 a device from DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. was recalled because more patients than expected had to have new surgeries, according to the FDA.

Earlier this month, a device called the R3 Acetabular System from Smith amp; Nephew was taken off the market because the company said it was "not satisfied with the clinical results of this component."

In Europe these concerns have led to calls to ban metal-on-metal hip replacement devices. Writing in March in the journal The Lancet, British researchers concluded that "metal-on-metal stemmed articulations give poor implant survival compared with other options and should not be implanted." Metal-on-metal implants had a five-year failure rate of more than 6 percent, three times higher that seen with ceramic or plastic joints.