› $150,000,000 verdict in personal injury case
An Oregon Appeals Court denied a request by defendant I-Flow for a new trial in Mulnomah County Circuit Court following a January 22 jury verdict against the pain pump manufacturer. Jurors awarded $5.475 million for damaging the right shoulder of Portland, Oregon, resident Matthew Beale, placing blame on the On-Q Painbuster infusion pain pump device manufactured and marketed by I-Flow.
Justin was just 17 years old when he was diagnosed with chondrolysis of his right shoulder. The condition occurs when the cartilage in the shoulder joint wears away causing bone to rub against bone. For more than a year, Justin suffered from such incredible pain that he was not able to use his right arm for even small tasks of everyday life, like combing his hair or putting on a shirt. The pain even kept him awake at night. But even more disappointing, Justin wasn’t able to compete as a swimmer, something he had participated in and trained for since he was just 7 years old.
Shoulder surgery may be the only hope for Chicago Cubs pitcher Angel Guzman to get back into the game. A recent MRI revealed that the right-handed pitcher had a severe tear in a ligament in his shoulder near his armpit. Despite the finding, he says he is seeking a second opinion from renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews to determine if surgery is preferable to a more conservative treatment. “It’s gong to be tough,” he told MLB.com. “By doing (the surgery), I have a small chance (of playing in the major leagues), but there is a chance.”
Several local anesthetics have added warnings on their labels notifying health care professionals that using the drugs in intra-articular devices, or pain pumps, following arthroscopic and other surgical procedures is not approved and has been linked to cases of a painful and debilitating condition of the shoulder joint known as chondrolysis, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Drug Safety report for February 2010. The cases of chondrolysis were reported in both pediatric and adult patients following intra-articular infusions of the anesthetics with and without epinephrine, a hormone neurotransmitter, for 48 to 72 hours following surgery.
Spring is just around the corner, which means baseball season will soon start for millions of American children. But experts say parents and children should be cautious of shoulder injuries, as more and more young baseball players are getting benched because of them.
Michael Johnson says neither he nor his doctor would have agreed to have a pain pump devices implanted into his shoulder joint during two arthroscopic surgeries if he knew that by doing so it would result in a full shoulder joint replacement. Johnson contends that the manufacturers of the medical device knew that the pain pumps were unreasonably and dangerously defective, and yet they did nothing to warn him or his surgeon about the risks associated with using it. Furthermore, he claims, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) specifically prohibited the marketing of pain pump devices with anesthetics to be placed in the joint cavity.
Shoulder dislocations most often occur during sports activities and young men are at the greatest risk of having them, one of the main reasons young athletes see orthopaedic surgeons, according to a study published in the March 2010 issue of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS). The study also puts elderly women at high risk of shoulder dislocation. Researchers add that despite the prevalence of shoulder dislocations, the injuries are relatively under-reported.
A growing number of young patients have been developing arthritis in their shoulders after routine outpatient arthroscopic surgery, causing surgeons to question what could be causing the debilitating condition in otherwise healthy individuals.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is notifying health care professionals of reports of a serious and destructive cartilage condition known as chondrolysis in patients who have had shoulder surgery during which they received continuously infused local anesthetics to deaden pain. The anesthetics were delivered via pain pumps, balloon-like devices that hold medication outside the body and have a catheter that delivers pain medication directly into the shoulder joint for up to 72 hours following surgery.
Dr. David S. Bailie, an orthopedic surgeon in Scottsdale, Ariz., says he’s lost hours of sleep over a rare joint condition he started seeing far too often in his patients who had had arthroscopic shoulder surgery. “There’s nothing worse than a surgeon doing something that causes a problem, not fixes a problem,” he told the New York Times.
Since 2005, Dr. Bailie says he has seen dozens of patients come to him months after surgery with worsening pain and limited mobility. The diagnosis was chondrolysis, a condition in which the cartilage in the shoulder joint wears away leaving bone to rub against bone. There is no cure for chondrolysis and in some cases, total shoulder replacement is required.
