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THE METALLOSIS-CANCER CONNECTION

Is it possible that metallosis can act to prevent cancer or to stop its spread?

Metallosis is the phenomenon that occurs when tiny particles of chromium and cobalt break off from metal-on-metal hip implants, enter the blood stream, and thence travel throughout the body.  

Our law firm, Egerton Law, represents forty odd clients with hip implants made by four different companies which had to be replaced in arevision operation. 

It is generally thought that metallosis is to blame for a wide variety of ailments, and it is one of the reasons for a revision (over five parts per billion is the threshold for a revision.)   We are unaware of any of our clients having a serious health problem that can be attributed to metallosis.

About a year ago one of our hip implant clients –  a 71 year old lady – surprised me with the startling information that four years earlier the doctors at Duke University Hospital had diagnosed her with pancreatic cancer and given her no more than six months to live.  She disposed of her worldly goods and prepared to meet her maker – but she is still here. In fact she has written an unpublished book, “HEY GOD, WAIT A MINUTE, I’M STILL HERE!”

She still has an inoperable pancreatic tumor, but apparently the cancer has been neutralized.  The doctors at Duke (and also Wake Forest University Hospital) still insist that she has pancreatic cancer but are unable to explain why she is still here.

Incidentally, she was fitted with a metal-on-metal hip implant on April 13, 2005, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on March 17, 2011, and had a hip revision operation on May 14, 2014  because of the high metal content in her blood stream.

It did not occur to me that there could be any connection between her high blood metal content and her miraculous escape from pancreatic cancer until I saw a TV show one Sunday night in April.   The program told about a Doctor Steed, from Duke, who two years earlier had injected live polio virus into the cancerous brain tumor of a young girl. The virus apparently “killed” the tumor, and she is alive and healthy today.  The Duke doctors are continuing their experiments with polio virus.

Could it be that the poisonous metals in my client’s blood stream had the same effect on her cancerous tumor as the polio virus had on the young girl’s tumor at Duke?  Surely if this is a cancer cure it would have been discovered long ago!

I received a plausible explanation two nights later.  A two hour documentary described the efforts to find a cure for cancer over the years.  First there was surgery over a hundred years ago. Then there was chemotherapy. These things “helped” but they were far from a cure.  

The program went on to describe the efforts made to discover a cure and the vast sums spent on the project over the years by numerous organizations.   The U. S. Government spent a large sum on the effort and then-President Nixon was quoted as saying that “if a cure wasn’t found it wouldn’t be because of a lack of funds.”

The program went on to describe the efforts that had been made to find a cure, including the testing of thousands of different ingredients.

Then it struck me!  I’ll bet nobody ever tried injecting chromium and/or cobalt metal ions into the blood streams of cancer patients. Could it possibly be that the bad experience of persons with recalled hip implants inadvertently points the way to a cancer cure?

As far out and unlikely as this seems, I feel that I have an obligation to bring my observations to somebody else’s attention.

My first step has been to start checking with my own revision clients to see how many of them have had cancer.  As of today, May 19, 2015, I have ascertained that 22 of our clients with DePuy ASR hip implants, which have been revised, have not had a post-hip-implant cancer diagnosis. An additional client with a DePuy Pinnacle implant, which has been revised, is still with us although she was diagnosed four years ago with pancreatic cancer and given six months to live (her story is described above). Another client with a Biomet hip implant, which was revised, had prostate cancer five years ago but reports that it is in remission. 

There are probably well in excess of 25,000 persons with metal-on–metal hip implants that have been revised within the last ten years. Those with access to the medical records of metal-on-metal hip implant patients should be encouraged to obtain and report their findings of a connection, if any, between metallosis and cancer rates. To find a cure for cancer, no stone should be left unturned.

One Comment

  1. Gravatar for Judith Derrico
    Judith Derrico

    I had a (L) THR with a Pinnacle (MoM) device in 2001. Then developed groin pain and high chromium levels resulting in a revision in 2004. 6 months after revision, my chromium levels returned to normal. I also had a (R) THR done in 1998 that is a MoP and is still going strong. But your article intrigued me. Very often cures are developed by happenstance rather than trial and error.

    Please keep me on you email list for this subject.

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