Patent ID: 8628490

Claim:
A method of unilaterally perfusing blood in a retrograde direction to a patient's brain, the method comprising: preparing to perform unilateral perfusion of a patient comprising the steps of: selecting a right or left jugular vein for retrograde perfusion of blood to the brain; positioning a catheter at a target location within a vein of the patient, perfusion ports of the catheter in fluid communication with the selected vein and residing between the selected vein and the heart; positioning an occlusion device at an occlusion location between the perfusion ports and the heart; and connecting a pump in series between the catheter and an artery of the patient; performing a perfusion period comprising the steps of: occluding said occlusion location; and operating the pump in a first direction to perfuse oxygen rich arterial blood from the artery into the selected vein for a period of time between 2 and 100 EKG beats; performing a non-perfusion period comprising the steps of: reversing the pump to transfer blood from the selected vein to the artery in parallel with decompressing the selected vein by collapsing the occlusion device allowing the selected vein to drain into the right atrium; and repeating multiple perfusion periods and the non-perfusion periods while the heart continues to beat; said oxygen rich blood perfusing from said catheter between said target location and said brain so as to move in a retrograde direction towards a single hemisphere of said brain.