Dr. Dorr’s presentation to AAHKS
This past February, the surgeon who first sounded the alarm about the high failure rate of the Zimmer Durom cups, Dr. Lawrence Dorr, gave a presentation at a meeting of the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons. His presentation was titled “Unexplained Loosening of Uncemented Acetabular Components: What Have We Learned for the Future?” [...]
This past February, the surgeon who first sounded the alarm about the high failure rate of the Zimmer Durom cups, Dr. Lawrence Dorr, gave a presentation at a meeting of the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons. His presentation was titled “Unexplained Loosening of Uncemented Acetabular Components: What Have We Learned for the Future?” Echoing the sentiment of his (by now) famous letter to the AAHKS from April 2008, he wrote in his abstract:
Surgeons depend on companies to provide implants with impeccable quality control. When a company cuts corners the doctor’s career is jeopardized and the patient is crippled. I have experienced two such crises caused by company error. The first one created biological failure. The second one caused mechanical failure. The lessons learned are: (1) Do not use a cup which does not have cadaver mechanical testing and fit data. (2) Do not use a fixation surface untested for bone growth. (3) Do not use an implant without validated one year followup data based on recommended surgical technique.