Bard / Becton Dickinson PowerPort Implantable Port Catheter Fracture & Injury Litigation

Bard PowerPort implantable vascular access ports are surgically implanted devices placed under the skin of patients requiring repeated intravenous access for chemotherapy, long-term medications, or blood draws. Lawsuits consolidated in the MDL allege that the polyurethane catheter component of the PowerPort is defectively designed and manufactured, making it susceptible to fracturing and fragmenting over time. When the catheter fractures, pieces can migrate through the bloodstream to the heart or lungs, causing cardiac arrhythmia, cardiac perforation, pulmonary embolism, and other potentially fatal complications requiring emergency surgery.

Plaintiffs further allege that C.R. Bard (acquired by Becton, Dickinson in 2017) knew of the fracture risk for years based on adverse event reports and internal testing but failed to warn physicians or patients and continued to market the devices as safe for high-pressure injections. The MDL, centralized in the District of Arizona in 2023, has grown rapidly with thousands of plaintiffs — many of them cancer survivors — and is proceeding through fact discovery with bellwether trials expected to shape the trajectory of settlements. The litigation underscores ongoing concerns about FDA 510(k) clearance pathways that allow medical devices to reach market without clinical trials.