Las Vegas Woman Develops Three Brain Tumors After Decades of Depo-Provera Injections

Tina Stephens-Smith, a Clark County resident, received Depo-Provera injections from 2002 through 2009, paused, and then resumed the contraceptive shot from 2011 through 2024. In July 2023, she began experiencing eye pain, facial swelling, blurred vision, and difficulty communicating. Imaging revealed three calcified meningiomas located behind her eye and at the base of her skull. She ultimately underwent three surgeries and thirty radiation treatments.

Stephens-Smith retained Steve Dimopoulos of Dimopoulos Injury Law and Robert Eglet of Eglet Law Group. The firms filed suit in November 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, naming Pfizer, Viatris, Greenstone, Prasco, and Pharmacia and Upjohn Co. as defendants.

The central allegation is failure to warn. A March 2024 study published in the British Medical Journal found that prolonged use of medroxyprogesterone acetate (the active compound in Depo-Provera) was associated with a 555 percent increase in the risk of intracranial meningioma. Attorneys for Stephens-Smith argued that manufacturers knew of this elevated risk well before updating the U.S. drug label. The domestic label was not revised until July 2024, four months after the BMJ study and after international labels in other markets had already been updated.

The case was later transferred into a federal multidistrict litigation (MDL 3140) consolidated in the Northern District of Florida. As of mid-2026, more than 5,500 similar lawsuits were pending in the MDL. In June 2026, Pfizer and plaintiffs' counsel reached a tentative global settlement agreement, and the first bellwether trial that had been scheduled for December 2026 was removed from the calendar. Financial terms of the global resolution have not been publicly disclosed.