The lawsuit was filed by Jace U., a man from Texas who was injured by the Option™ ELITE Retrievable Inferior Vena Cava (“IVC Filter”) manufactured by Rex Medical L.P. and Argon Medical Devices, Inc.
Option™ ELITE Retrievable Inferior Vena Cava Filter
The IVC filter was surgically implanted in his body on July 23, 2015 at Seton Medical Center in Austin, Texas, because he was diagnosed with blood clots in his legs, known as Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT).
The purpose of the filter was to prevent blood clots from traveling in his bloodstream to his lungs and causing a Pulmonary Embolism (PE).
Despite having an IVC filter, he was diagnosed with blood clots in both of his lungs (bilateral pulmonary embolism) after undergoing a CT scan on November 9, 2015.
His doctors also discovered blood clots stuck in the IVC filter and his left iliac vein, which required emergency surgery. Later that day, he underwent a venogram and thrombolysis to locate and dissolve blood clots.
Both procedures were unsuccessful. His doctors could not remove blood clots in the IVC filter or the blood clots in his legs due to DVT.
On November 10, 2015, doctors performed an AngioJet Thrombectomy procedure to try to remove the blood clots. Unfortunately, this procedure was also unsuccessful. According to the lawsuit:
The thrombus in the IVC filter could not be removed by angiojet thrombectomy; therefore, because of this clot burden, Plaintiff’s IVC filter is permanent and unremovable.”
His lawyers accuse Rex Medical of selling a defective and unreasonably dangerous medical device. The manufacturers are also accused of failing to conduct sufficient clinical testing, such as animal studies, to determine how the IVC filter would function once permanently implanted in the body and if it was actually effective.
The lawsuit was filed on April 18, 2017 in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas — Case ID: 170402483.
There are now over 3,500 other IVC filter lawsuits pending against manufacturers like Rex Medical, B. Braun, Cook Medical, and C.R. Bard in state and federal courts nationwide.
The plaintiff is represented by attorney Ben C. Martin of The Law Offices of Ben C. Martin in Dallas, Texas; and attorney Stephen A. Sheller of Sheller, P.C., in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Editor’s note: For more information about IVC Filter lawsuits and your legal rights, please contact The Law Offices of Ben C. Martin.