Patent ID: 7722568

Claim:
A method of instrumenting the aorta of a patient for the purpose of introducing and removing an intra-aortic balloon pump catheter comprising the steps of: routing a guidewire into the aorta from a femoral or iliac artery access point on a patient; inserting a sheath with a pre-inserted dilator into the patient's femoral or iliac artery over the guidewire, and advancing the sheath to a treatment or diagnostic site within the aorta, wherein the sheath comprises a distal expandable region which is collapsed in diameter; introducing an intra-aortic balloon pump catheter into the aorta of the patient through the sheath; performing counterpulsation with the intra-aortic balloon pump catheter; expanding a dilator within the sheath, thus expanding the distal region of the sheath, wherein a frill-size lumen exists within at least the distal region of the sheath; collapsing the dilator by an action applied at the proximal end of said dilator; withdrawing the dilator from the distal, expandable region of the sheath; withdrawing the deflated intra-aortic balloon pump catheter into the distal, expandable region of the sheath; and removing the sheath and intra-aortic balloon pump catheter from the patient.