Patent ID: 7727253

Claim:
A medical grasping device comprising: an elongate control member having an atraumatic distal tip section and a proximal end portion, said elongate control member further including a grasping portion proximal said distal tip section; an outer sheath with a passageway therethrough surrounding said elongate control member and relatively movable with respect thereto; a control assembly disposed at a proximal end of said outer sheath and said proximal end portion of said elongate control member and in operative relation thereto for urging said grasping portion from a distal end of said outer sheath and retraction thereinto; at least one porous material substantially covering at least one side of said grasping portion; wherein said grasping portion comprises four preformed wire loops, said at least one porous material substantially covering said at least one side of said four preformed wire loops, wire segments of the loops being initially oriented axially to the elongate control member, the wire segments deflecting radially and diverging from one another as the four preformed wire loops begin to open, the four preformed wire loops self-deploy transversely from said distal end of said outer sheath, said four preformed wire loops after self-deploying transversely are approximately equally spaced angularly about a longitudinal axis of said elongate control member and thereby generally occupy a full cross-section of a vessel into which the grasping device is inserted; and wherein each of said wire loops is pie-shaped and includes arcuate outer sections having a radius about equal to a radius of a deployment site of a vessel into which the grasping device is inserted, edges of the wire loops forming a continuous support for the at least one porous material at the outer edges of the vessel.