Delivery of a composition to the lung

DETAILED DESCRIPTION In general, the invention features a method and apparatus for facilitating delivery of a composition to the lung via a non-surgical percutaneous approach that utilizes the pulmonary circulation.
Accordingly, in a first aspect, the invention features a method for delivering a composition to a lung that includes the steps of: (a) inserting a pulmonary artery catheter into a pulmonary artery supplying the lung via a first non-surgical percutaneous route, where the pulmonary artery catheter includes a deployable means for occluding the inserted pulmonary artery; (b) inserting a pulmonary vein catheter into a pulmonary vein draining the lung via a second non-surgical percutaneous route, where the pulmonary vein catheter includes a deployable means for occluding the inserted pulmonary vein; and (c) delivering the composition to the lung via at least one of the group consisting of the pulmonary artery catheter and the pulmonary vein catheter.
In one embodiment, the composition delivered to the lung is collected by at least one of the group consisting of the pulmonary artery catheter and the pulmonary vein catheter, where the delivering catheter and the collecting catheter are different.
In another embodiment, the delivering catheter is connected to the collecting catheter, where the composition collected by the collecting catheter is returned to the lung by the delivering catheter.
Preferably, a number of the pulmonary veins drain the lung.
In another embodiment of the first aspect of the invention, the step (b) further includes inserting a number of the pulmonary vein catheters into the number of pulmonary veins draining the lung, where each of the pulmonary vein catheters includes a deployable means for occluding the inserted pulmonary vein, where the number of pulmonary vein catheters is equal to the number of pulmonary veins draining the lung, and where not more than one of the pulmonary vein catheters is inserted into one pulmonary vein.
Preferably, the delivering step is via at least one of the group consisting of the pulmonary artery catheter and at least one of the pulmonary vein catheters