Our firm was NOT involved in this case.

This week the Court of Appeals announced its decision in a medical malpractice case.

The plaintiff alleged she was suffered a systematic allergic reaction from a stent inserted in her coronary artery.  She brought suit against the doctor who inserted the stent.

The plaintiff had an expert who concluded that on a more probable than not basis to a reasonable degree of medical certainty the care rendered fell below the standard of care for a physician practicing in Washington State, and that this failure resulted in injury to the plaintiff.

The plaintiff’s expert also pointed out that the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the manufacturers of the stent warn that patients with hypersensitivity to stainless steel may suffer an allergic reaction to stents.

The plaintiff’s expert further opined

“It is well established as a matter of basic chemistry that small amounts of nickel may leach from stainless steel when it is in contact with human tissue. Stents are placed inside a blood vessel where they are exposed to significant blood flow. Therefore during the time between implantation and the development of the epithelial cell coating there is a ‘window’ when a small amount of nickel could enter the bloodstream. If a patient is sufficiently sensitive, that nickel would be expected to provoke some degree of allergic reaction. The reaction would be expected to be diffuse, due to the nickel spreading through the bloodstream. . . .The symptoms that Sheri Eakins attributes to metal allergy are in the nature of a systemic inflammatory response to the introduction of such an allergen, including rash, swollen joints, fever, sweats and elevated blood pressure. She reports a dramatic worsening of these conditions since the stent implantation. These are the same sort of symptoms found in the various studies referenced above.”

The trial court had dismissed the case.

The doctor defending the medical malpractice claim presented his own expert, a board-certified internist, allergist, and immunologist. The defense expert stated that “on a more probable than not basis, that the field of medicine and in particular, the fields of allergy and immunology, have not generally accepted any causal relationship between the placement of a Taxus stent in a coronary artery and the development of a systemic reaction like that claimed by” the plaintiff.

The trial court concluded that the plaintiff’s evidence did not pass the Frye test.  Under the Frye test the courts look at whether the underlying theory is generally accepted in the appropriate scientific community and whether there are experiments or studies using that theory that are capable of producing reliable results and are generally accepted in the scientific community.  If there is a significant dispute between qualified experts as to the validity of scientific evidence, it may not be admitted.

The trial court concluded that there was not a scientific consensus on the causation theory.  Therefore, the evidence was not admissible and the plaintiff’s case was dismissed. The Court of Appeals agreed and upheld the dismissal of the medical malpractice case.

The case illustrates that there is much more to proving a medical malpractice case than many people realize.

If you believe you may have been injured by medical malpractice you should seek the advice of an attorney.