About 100 patients nationwide have sued several pain pump manufacturers, claiming that the companies failed to inform doctors that the pumps did not have FDA approval to dispense local anesthetics directly into shoulder joints, the Phoenix Business Journal reports. Nine of the suits were filed in Arizona over the past year, with patients asking for a total of $68 million in damages.

Attorney Laura Kalur of Kalur Law Offices in Portland, Ore., tells the Business Journal that while the FDA has approved the use of pain pumps to deliver local anesthetics post-operatively to the tissue around the shoulders, it has repeatedly denied their use inside the shoulder joint. "All the manufacturers knew this," she says. "Unfortunately, from 1999 on, these pain pumps were being marketed for use for interarticular, or inside the joint." The plaintiffs allege that direct injection of anesthetics damaged the cartilage in their shoulder joints, causing permanent damage and severe pain.

Ms. Kalur says the suits do not target the surgeons involved in the cases. Anthony Yeung, MD, of the Desert Institute for Spine Care in Phoenix, who is not involved in the lawsuits, tells the Business Journal that despite the suits, physicians shouldn???t shy away from using pain pumps to deliver local anesthetics to soft tissue in the shoulder after surgery.

—Irene Tsikitas