Experts are now able to save patients from potentially fatal outcomes from blood clots, infected masses or foreign bodies from major cardiac blood vessels without performing open-heart surgery. The AngioVac is a catheter-based device in which thin tubes are inserted into two major veins in the body through the neck or groin area. Under X-ray guidance, the flexible tubes are advanced to the proximal veins, right-sided heart chambers and/or lung arteries. Each is equipped with an expandable, balloon-shaped funnel tip that, when attached to a bypass circuit, vacuums the targeted material, such as a blood, clot out of the body.