Four years and five surgeries later, Jane Rogers, 53, has filed a lawsuit over defective DePuy ASR hip implants following, which she claims caused her to suffer many hours of rehabilitation and missed work. Rogers is one of 93,000 patients who, globally, were implanted with the defective DePuy ASR hip implants. American Statesman noted that her first two surgeries were for hip replacements due to osteoarthritis; the next three were to correct problems caused by the defective DePuy ASR hip implants.

DePuy Orthopaedics, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, recalled its ASR XL Acetabular System and its ASR Hip Resurfacing System last August. In the United States, some 37,000 patients have been implanted with the defective devices. To date, about 1,000 lawsuits have been filed against the device maker in state and federal courts, said DePuy spokeswoman Mindy Tinsley, wrote the American Statesman. Lawsuits have claimed premature failing of the defective device and the metal shedding, noted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The DePuy ASR Hip Implant System is a metal-on-metal hip implant made of chromium and cobalt, consisting of a cup that’s implanted into the hip with a ball joint that connects to the leg. It is believed that many of the complications linked to the DePuy hip implant are caused by wearing of the metal components, which can allow cobalt and chromium shavings to make their way into patients’ bloodstreams. This can cause a reaction known as metallosis, which can lead to tissue breakdown, bone loss, and even the formation of non-cancerous tumors. The shedding of metal shavings can also cause cobalt poisoning, a disorder that, if left untreated, can put patients at risk of tinnitus (ringing in the ears), vertigo, deafness, blindness, optic nerve atrophy, convulsions, headaches, peripheral neuropathy, cardiomyopathy, and hypothyroidism.

Rogers underwent her original hip replacement surgeries in 2007 and 2008, the devices were then removed and replaced in 2010 and 2011; implant with a temporary hip due to infection was also conducted. Although she does not have a total dollar amount for all of the surgeries, Rogers said that the first revision surgery, including physician fees, cost over $100,000, not including rehabilitation costs, reported the American Statesman.

According to this lawsuit, Rogers claims that nearly five years after DePuy began distributing the faulty ASR XL in the U.S. in 2003, the device maker was fully aware of the high failure rate, following information received from Australia, said the American Statesman. The National Joint Registry of England and Wales showed that 1 out of 8 patients (12%-13%) who had received the devices had to undergo revision surgery within five years of receiving the surgery. Since, other data suggests that the failure rate is actually as high as 49 percent. A hip implant should last for roughly 15 years, but many DePuy ASR hip implant recipients have had to undergo new surgeries just a few years after implantation.

Another patient, Richard Zak, 39, said he would “do just about anything not [to] have another surgery,” quoted the American Statesman, which said that, to date, he’s undergone two total hip replacements and a third surgery to remove and replace one faulty DePuy device that Zak alleges never healed. Zak said he is very concerned about “all this stuff floating around in me,” quoted the American Statesman.