Nothing personal, something I saw in an ER rerun “Dear Abby” from Season 10. Apparently from the episode (2003), it implies that that’s not something that will get you on a waiting list for a transplant.
From the ep: A teenager has been diagnosed with PPH, and Dr. Lewis (Sherri Stringfield) upbraids Abby (Maura TIerney) for telling the teen that “she’s probably going to die a long, painful death.” From what I could gather, it’s not unusual for heart/lung transplants, but also not that common (possibly due to the scarcity of available donor organs?) but is it some reason why it wouldn’t put you on a waiting list?
I believe it is because of the dearth of healthy organs available for transplants. People at high risk probably won’t make the list or, at least, be on the bottom because there is a significant chance the transplant will be in vain. It’s a form of triage.
When COVID hit with full force, and some nations like Italy were decimated with cases, they were leaving patients near death on gurneys in the hallways while attending to patients they felt they could save.
From a study done at Stanford in 1999:
https://www.annalsthoracicsurgery.org/article/S0003-4975(99)00176-9/fulltext
Methods. We reviewed our institution’s experience with heart-lung transplantation for primary pulmonary hypertension.
Results. Thirty-nine patients had heart-lung transplantation for primary pulmonary hypertension.
Conclusions. Heart-lung transplantation results in survival comparable to that reported for single or double lung transplantation.
BUT:
Another issue to be considered is waiting time. United Network for Organ Sharing allocation rules mandate that heart-lung blocks be offered before either the lungs or hearts alone, except for status I hearts. In areas of the country where there is a high concentration of status I heart recipients, it is unlikely that a heart-lung block will become available and the waiting time for HLT recipients will be prohibitively long.