A California man has filed a hernia mesh repair surgery lawsuit in New Hampshire federal court, home of Atrium Medical Corp., which is the subject of a multidistrict products liability litigation.
Robert Olmstead had a C-Qur Mesh V-patch implanted in July 24, 2012 and removed Aug. 28, 2015, at the Kaiser Permanente Vacaville Medical Center in Vacaville, California.
The hernia mesh repair surgery lawsuit states that Olmstead suffered abdominal pain and a balled-up mesh, requiring the device to be removed.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, a hernia occurs when “an organ, intestine or fatty tissue squeezes through a hole or a weak spot in the surrounding muscle or connective tissue.”
Hernias often happen at the abdominal wall, the FDA notes, and can sometimes look like a bulge, “particularly when straining or bearing down.”
Surgeons use surgical mesh to strengthen the hernia repair and reduce the likelihood of recurrence, which is high.
Surgical mesh “may also improve patient outcomes through decreased operative time and minimized recovery time,” according to the agency, which cautions that “recovery time depends on the type of hernia, the surgical approach, and the patient’s condition both before and after surgery.”
So what exactly is surgical mesh?
Surgical mesh devices — most are made from synthetic materials or animal tissue — provide added support to weakened or damaged tissue.
Animal-derived hernia mesh devices are absorbable and made out of animal tissue, such as intestine or skin, that has been processed and disinfected to be suitable for use as an implanted device, according to the FDA, which states that the majority of the tissue used to produce these hernia mesh implants comes from pigs or cows.
Absorbable mesh degrades over time and is not intended for long-term reinforcement. Instead, according to the FDA, as the material degrades, new tissue growth is supposed to strengthen the repair.
The FDA has received reports of hernia mesh complications that include “adverse reactions to the mesh, adhesions (when the loops of the intestines adhere to each other or the mesh), and injuries to nearby organs, nerves or blood vessels” in addition to infection, chronic pain and hernia recurrence.
The FDA says that the most common adverse events following hernia repair with mesh are “pain, infection, hernia recurrence, adhesion, and bowel obstruction. Some other potential adverse events that can occur following hernia repair with mesh are mesh migration and mesh shrinkage (contraction).”
According to the agency, most of the complications have been linked to mesh products that have been recalled.
Another Atrium plaintiff alleged that the company’s hernia mesh products contain polypropylene mesh, which Atrium claims is inert — or chemically inactive — despite a substantial body of scientific evidence indicating that polypropylene mesh is “biologically incompatible with human tissue and promotes an immune response in a large subset of the population” who have had the mesh implanted.
Patients across the country have filed hernia mesh repair surgery lawsuits..
If you suffered hernia mesh complications which required a hernia mesh repair surgery, you may want to consider filing a lawsuit.. The experienced team of attorneys at McDonald Worley offer a FREE case evaluation. Fill out the form on this page and a hernia mesh attorney will contact you regarding a possible lawsuit..