July 31 (Reuters) – Becton Dickinson said on Friday it is issuing a recall on certain lots of medical needle sets in the U.S. after users reported difficulty in removing a part of the device after using it on patients.
Here are some details:
• The product, called an intraosseous needle set, is used to deliver fluids and medicine quickly into a patient’s bone when a regular IV line cannot be used fast enough. This is often done in emergencies, such as cardiac arrest or severe trauma.
• Becton said the issue involves a part called the obturator, or stylet, which sometimes cannot be removed after the needle is inserted.
• The company said this incident can happen if the drill used to insert the needle is not pulled straight back, or if the obturator is rotated the wrong way when taken out.
• As of June 2026, BD said it had received 75 complaints and 45 reports of serious injury related to the problem. The company also said four patients died when the part could not be removed during resuscitation efforts for people who had suffered cardiac arrest outside a hospital.
• The affected needle sets were made with parts slightly out of the normal size range and were shipped between September 30, 2024, and June 12, 2026.
• The recall does not include the intraosseous powered driver, which is the tool used to insert the needles.
• BD said that if the obturator cannot be removed, medical staff may need to get a new needle or switch to another way of giving treatment, like a peripheral IV catheter. That delay could be dangerous, especially for critically ill patients, the company said.
• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been informed about the recall, BD said.
(Reporting by Padmanabhan Ananthan in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)
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