One in six lung candidates never makes it to transplant.
Behind the donor supply is a waitlist paying the price of scarcity. A sizable share of listed lung candidates die or become too sick before an organ arrives — and blood type shapes the odds.
Source: OPTN/UNOS STAR file, Dec 2025 release · 86,992 lung/heart-lung waitlist registrations, by removal reason.
17%
16.9% of lung candidates died on the waitlist or were removed too sick to transplant (14,670 of 86,992). Every donor lung recovered-then-discarded is set against this standing mortality.
01 · Competing outcomes
Where lung registrations end up
Final disposition of every lung/heart-lung waitlist registration. Transplant is the majority path, but death and clinical deterioration claim a meaningful share.
Waitlist outcome (% of registrations)
02 · Blood type
Type O candidates fare worst
Waitlist mortality by candidate blood type. Type O can only receive O lungs, so O candidates wait longest (77 d median vs 45 d for AB) and die most.
Waitlist mortality by blood type (%)
Median days-to-transplant: O 77 · A 60 · B 63 · AB 45.
Waitlist mortality is the counterweight to donor-lung discards: the 17% who die waiting are the clinical cost of every usable organ declined. Recovering more transplantable lungs — the VitalMatch aim — pushes directly against this number.