Patent ID: 7575585

Claim:
An intravascular obstruction removing wire comprising: an elongate wire body with a distal end; at least two non-branched wire portions having distal ends and proximal ends, the proximal ends of the non-branched wire portions being connected to the distal end of said elongate wire body, the two non-branched wire portions lying in a plane; a plurality of non-branched filament portions extending across said non-branched wire portions; each of said non-branched filament portions having a first end portion, a second end portion, and a loop section extending between the first and second end portions; the first end portions of all of the non-branched filament portions are gathered at the distal end of one of the non-branched wire portions and connected thereto and the second end portions of all of the non-branched filament portions are gathered at the distal end of another one of the non-branched wire portions and connected thereto so that the intravascular obstruction removing wire has no filament portion which is not gathered at the respective distal ends of the non-branched wire portions, and the loop sections of the non-branched filament portions are separated from each other to form a trapping portion; said trapping portion is deformable from a large-diameter state in which said non-branched wire portions branch from the distal end of said elongate wire body forward in different directions and said non-branched filament portions are separated from each other, so that a space surrounded by said non-branched wire portions and said non-branched filament portions is formed to trap therein an obstruction in a blood vessel, to a small-diameter state in which said non-branched wire portions are positioned so that a distance between the non-branched wire portions is smaller than that of the non-branched wire portions in the large-diameter state; and the plurality of non-branched filament portions comprising a first filament portion, a second filament portion and a third filament portion, the loop section of the first filament portion being positioned entirely on one side of the plane, the loop section of the second filament portion being positioned entirely on the opposite side of the plane, the loop section of the third filament portion lying approximately in the plane.