A man from Indiana is suing Cook Medical for a faulty Celect IVC Filter. The filter was supposed to be retrievable, but it could not be removed because it had become embedded in his body and punctured a vein.
The lawsuit was filed in the Marion County Superior Court in Indiana.
The Celect filter was implanted in his body in March 2009 to prevent blood clots. In 2016, the plaintiff was informed by his doctor that the filter was embedded into the wall of the inferior vena cava. He was also told that multiple struts had penetrated through the wall of the vein.
Doctors attempted to remove the filter, but had to stop the procedure, as the risks were too high.
The lawsuit claims that the faulty filter left him with permanent health problems.
“For the rest of the Plaintiff’s life, he will require on-going medical monitoring and the use of anti-coagulants,” the lawsuit said.
Cook Medical has been accused of creating and selling a defective medical device, and failing to warn patients of the dangerous risks associated with the IVC filter.
Cook Medical is facing more than 3,600 lawsuits over their IVC filter in both federal and state court.
Other manufacturers of IVC filters are also facing lawsuits. The first bellwether trial out of thousands of IVC lawsuits against C.R. Bard, Inc. is slated to start on March 13, 2018. If the Court resolves all motions, the final pretrial conference is scheduled for February 23, 2018.
C.R. Bard and Cook Medical are the two largest manufacturers of IVC filters. There are more than 4,000 lawsuits filed against both companies, with allegations that they attempted to conceal the dangers of their retrievable IVC filters.
Alleged dangerous side effects include fracture, migration, embolization, perforation and inferior vena cava punctures.
The companies are also being accused of failing to warn doctors about the risks.