Metallosis | welcome to kathycalhounpresident.com.

The TV program House is consistently watched by viewers all over the world because of its prominent main character, Dr. Gregory House, played by Hugh Laurie; and its distinct and significant plots centering on today’s medical issues.

On February 7, 2011, the episode aired was entitled Family Practice. In this episode, Dr. House resolves the health issue of Arlene Cuddy (Candice Bergen) who many supposed was only battling from hypochondria. It was then found out that her illness was cobalt poisoning and metallosis caused by her defective hip operation.

Arlene is rushed to the hospital with heart problems, but refuses treatment by House. When Dr. House knew what’s wrong with her, he together with his team and Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) proceeded in treating Arlene without her or her physician’s knowledge. Arlene is the mother of Lisa who is House’s love team.

He cuts open her thigh and reveals that she has had metallosis.

Design problems with metal-on-metal hip implants may have caused the metal components of the DePuy device to rub against each other and shed microscopic metal particles into the body. Tissue damages, inflammatory reactions and bone loss are the effects of the presence of metal bits in the body. This may possibly result in the need for a hip revision operation, a more risky and agonizing surgery. The metal particles shed from metal-on-metal hip replacement implants may increase the amount of some metals in the blood, such as chromium and cobalt. This may cause metallosis (blood poisoning) and genotoxicity (genetic damage). Chromium and cobalt have also been linked to cancer, and might lead to the development of tumors.

Among the symptoms of flawed hip devices are pain on the hip area, pain on the thigh or groin area, pain while walking, pain when rising from a seated position, pain bearing weight and swelling.

Another metal-on-metal hip replacement eventually lead to litigation of manufacturer.The perils of metal-on-metal hip surgeries was featured earlier on the New York Times.

References:

• tv.com/shows/house/
• usanetwork.com/series/house/
• fox.com/house/bios/hugh-laurie.htm
• usrecallnews.com/2010/09/depuy-hip-replacement-recalled-asr-artificial-hip-systems.html
• nytimes.com/2010/08/27/business/27hip.html
• tga.gov.au/newsroom/btn-dupuy-recall.htm

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