Attune Knee Implant Lawsuit Filed in Alabama

October 4, 2017 — A lawsuit involving the DePuy Attune knee replacement has been filed in Alabama by a person who needed revision surgery.

The victim was seriously injured when the DePuy Attune knee replacement loosened prematurely and failed, allegedly as a result of poor bonding between the metal tibial baseplate and the bones.

The civil lawsuit was filed Circuit Court of Tuscaloosa County, Alabama on September 13, 2017. According to the attorneys:

“We expect to see increasing lawsuits given the seriousness of the injuries and under-reporting of these injuries associated with the DePuy Attune Knee.”

The lawsuit cites research published in the Journal of Knee Surgery linking the Attune knee implant’s tibial component with an “unusually high rate of early failure” at the implant-cement interface.

The study was published by surgeons who had to remove the Attune knee implant from 15 patients who were suffering from pain, swelling, and limited mobility within 2 years of their original knee surgery.

All 15 patients had little to no cement attaching the bottom of the metal knee replacement implant to their knee bones. As a result, the entire knee replacement was destabilized. The only treatment for this complication is another surgery to remove and replace the implant.

The surgeons also blamed design flaws, including reduced pockets on the underside of the tibial baseplate for cement. DePuy updated the design of the Attune and released the “Attune S+” with deeper cut-outs, but never recalled the original Attune linked to so many failures.