Dr. Robert Zann and Dr. William Leone are Florida’s Biggest Physician-Victims of the Stryker Rejuvenate

According to a report by the Sun Sentinel Newspaper dated December 19, 2010, orthopedic surgeons Dr. Robert Zann of Boca Raton and Dr. William Leone of Fort Lauderdale together performed over six hundred hip replacement surgeries in 2009 alone. There is nothing to suggest that their volume decreased in 2010, 2011 or 2012.

In an article entitled “Busiest Doctors, Hospitals for Hip, Knee Surgery,” the Sun Sentinel placed Dr. Leone number one in the state at 359 hip replacements. Dr. Zann was not far behind at 273.

Searcy Denney already represents several clients who received Stryker Rejuvenate hip implants from Dr. Zann. Many of these clients relate conversations with their doctor indicating that many more patients implanted with Rejuvenate hips by Dr. Zann have also had their implants fail.

In addition, one potential client in whom Dr. Leone placed a Rejuvenate has said that Dr. Leone has experienced similar failures like Dr. Zann. Many of his patients either have already been revised or anticipate being revised in the future.

For an experienced, busy, and highly trained orthopedic surgeon who stakes his reputation on quality care, these patient outcomes are a disaster. Time will tell, but in our opinion we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of Rejuvenate failures. Assuming Drs. Zann and Leone implanted several hundred Rejuvenate hips each and each hip has a potentially reduced life expectancy due to defect, these two surgeons may be revising shockingly high numbers of very unhappy patients. That does not bode well for their reputations, regardless if they can point the finger at the defective Stryker product as the culprit.

Having already experienced a high number of failures, Drs. Zann and Leone will be inundated with calls from unhappy patients once they are forced to notify them that Stryker has recalled the product. As we wrote about the DePuy ASR recall, telling a patient who has been implanted with a permanent medical device that the device has been “recalled” creates quite a problem. This is not like recalling a defective car seat or a bad lot of medicine. The device is inside the patient’s body! Now the patient faces the awful decision of whether to undergo a painful revision surgery.

Since Stryker has now admitted that these devices have been linked to excess metal poisoning and related complications, choosing to leave the device in the body, even if the patient is not symptomatic, is a difficult one.

Even before Stryker recently recalled the Rejuvenate and ABG II systems, both doctors were telling their patients that they had quit implanting them because of the high failure rate.

It appears that South Florida may be an epicenter for Rejuvenate litigation. Not only do we feel bad for these patients, we empathize with Drs. Zann and Leone as well. They are also victims here.

The Searcy Denney Law Firm is dedicated to working with individual patients to help prove all the injuries and losses they have suffered as a result of the Stryker Rejuvenate hip implant. With the help of Mark DiCello of the DiCello Law Firm and John Gomez from the Gomez Law Firm the Searcy Denney Law firm will do what it takes to help people affected by this recall. With our combined experience and passion for justice we can best help put lives back together for those affected by the recalled Strker hip implant.