We are no longer accepting cases regarding these products.  Due to a terrible Supreme Court ruling, consumers injured by this product are no longer permitted to sue the manufacturers of this device.  We wish we could help, but the Supreme Court has taken the rights of citizens away to protect the profits of medical device manufacturers.  For more information, please read the following New York Times article entitled “Medical Device Ruling Redraws Lines on Lawsuits.

Published in Annals of Surgery in 2013, an article by WA Brown et al. titled “Erosions after laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding: diagnosis and management.” aimed to “define the changing prevalence of erosion after Laparoscopic Adjustable Gastric Banding (LAGB), describing the range of clinical presentations, the approaches to treatment and the outcomes from these approaches over a 15-year study period.”  Currently, one of the most popular such banding systems is the LAP-BAND, manufactured by Allergan, and these were the devices studied by this research team.

Studying 2986 patients who had a LAP-BAND system implanted between September 1994 and January 2010 by two particular surgeons.  In that group, one “[h]undred erosions were experienced by 85 patients (2.85%) at a median time of 33 months from initial surgery to the erosion” and researchers noted that “The rate of erosion was highest when the band was placed by the perigastric approach at 6.77%.” Due to the advent of new surgical techniques, the authors write that the risk for erosion can be significantly lowered if the “pars flaccida approach” is used. (hyperlink added)

Sadly, the rate for LAP-BAND erosion determined by these researchers is significantly higher than the rate Allergan reports in the LAP-BAND Warning Label, which states that erosion will occur in only 1.33% of LAP-BAND patients.

As a result of this discrepancy in risk rates, a number of Allergan LAP-BAND lawsuits have been filed.

Our Allergan LAP-BAND Lawsuit Information page is a great place to start if you have any questions about the Allergan LAP-BAND.