On April 8, 2013, two studies and two editorials were published in JAMA Internal Medicine, raising serious questions about the use of vena cava filters. Less than 10% of filters evaluated in one of the studies were successfully removed from patients and 8% of recipients of IVC filters suffered a pulmonary embolism despite the device’s presence.
Links to Articles
- Indications, Complications, and Management of Inferior Vena Cava FiltersThe Experience in 952 Patients at an Academic Hospital With a Level I Trauma Center
- The Inferior Vena Cava Filter – How Could a Medical Device Be So Well Accepted Without Any Evidence of Efficacy?
- Inferior Vena Cava Filters: The Harms Are Clear, the Benefits Less So
- High Variation Between Hospitals in Vena Cava Filter Use for Venous Thromboembolism
These articles support prior warnings issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) regarding Bard IVC Filters. Those warnings which were issued on August 9, 2010, after the FDA had received more than 900 reports of problems, warned doctors about the dangers of IVC filters such as the Bard Recovery and Bard G2. According to the FDA advisory to physicians these retrievable filters should be removed after the clot burden passed. The FDA state that IVC filters may fail, leading to parts of the filters migrating through a patients body.
Disclosure
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