Danish doctors continued to operate a dangerous hip implant into patients despite having been warned against their use, according to DR.

The hip doctors’ organisation advised its members in 2006 that ASR hip implants from the U.S. company DePuy could give complications and recommended that thorough tests on a small group of patients should be carried out before the widespread use of the metal hip.

Nonetheless doctors continued to implant the hip until DePuy itself withdrew the artificial hip it in 2010.

“If the doctors had listened to the warnings, it would not have been such a big scandal. There are a lot more patients who have received a potentially harmful hip than was necessary,” says Chief Physician Christian Gluud of Rigshospitalet’s Clinical Research Unit.

Danish Orthopaedic Society Deputy Chairman Søren Overgård says doctors should not have used the hip.

“Obviously in hindsight we should not have used it. But most patients who have an ASR hip are doing well today. Only a few of those operated in Denmark are unwell,” Overgaard tells DR.

The ASR scandal in Denmark erupted in January when DR News disclosed that the artificial metal hip from DePuy could affect bones and tissue. Between 1995 and 2010, the hip was implanted into some 2,000 Danes.

The DePuy Orthopaedics Unit of Johnson & Johnson recalled the ASR Hip System in August 2010 after receiving data from a joint replacement registry in the United Kingdom. The report showed that a high number of patients had required revision surgery due to pain and other complications.

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