Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

I-Flow has agreed to settle five lawsuits from plaintiffs who say the company’s pain pump device used during shoulder repair surgery caused them to develop a painful and debilitating condition known as chondrolysis. The announcement follows a ruling by a federal judge in Ohio who rejected efforts to have the cases dismissed. The lawsuits had been consolidated for a trial that was scheduled to begin late last month. All of the plaintiffs alleged that the pain pumps manufactured by I-Flow to infuse pain medication into the shoulder joint during and after arthroscopic surgery destroyed the shoulder cartilage, causing chondrolysis.

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Mathew McKeown, 23, of Blue Ash, Ohio, dreamed of playing pro ball. He was an all-city football player in high school and earned a scholarship to play for Miami. Making it to the NFL was just a matter of time.

But during a game in October 2006, McKeown’s left shoulder was injured while trying to recover a fumble. Doctors implanted the catheter of a On-Q PainBuster pain pump manufactured by I-Flow into his shoulder joint. For up to 72 hours, medication gradually dripped into his shoulder and slowly began eating away at the cartilage.

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A group of researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, have identified that male high school athletes in the United States are more likely than girls to suffer shoulder injuries, according to The Washington Post. The study focused on football, soccer, volleyball, basketball, wrestling, baseball and softball and found that shoulder injuries did not happen frequently, but when they did occur, a disproportionate number of shoulder injuries happened to high school boys than high school girls.

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