Drones may rush donor lungs to transplant patients, saving precious time

Copied word for word from the study's registry entry, so the wording is the study team's rather than ours.

Inclusion Criteria 1. The donor lung has been donated, allocated, procured, and assigned in accordance with applicable Chinese laws, regulations, allocation rules, and ethical requirements, and has been allocated to a lung transplant candidate at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University. 2. The donor lung is considered clinically suitable for transplantation by both the procurement team and the recipient transplant team and is intended for single or bilateral lung transplantation. 3. The donor-lung procurement location, transplant location, and transport route conform to the prespecified Nanning-to-Guangzhou cross-regional unmanned-aircraft scenario. 4. After standard perfusion, cold preservation, and triple sterile packaging, the donor-lung package meets the transport-container and aircraft requirements for weight, dimensions, fixation, and preservation. 5. The participant is 18 years of age or older, meets clinical indications for lung transplantation, and is considered medically suitable to undergo single or bilateral lung transplantation. 6. The participant or legally authorized representative has provided written informed consent for the study before formal task activation. 7. Before activation, the aircraft, propulsion, navigation, communication, monitoring equipment, landing sites, weather, airspace, route, energy reserve, and backup transport plan meet prespecified operational criteria. 8. The main transport timestamps, environmental and flight-engineering data, and participant follow-up through postoperative day 90 are expected to be obtainable. Exclusion Criteria 1. The donor lung is considered unsuitable for transplantation or has been definitively declined before task activation. 2. The donation, allocation, procurement, transport, or transplantation process does not comply with applicable legal, ethical, institutional, or protocol requirements. 3. The packaged donor lung does not meet aircraft or transport-container requirements for weight, dimensions, fixation, packaging, or preservation. 4. The participant is younger than 18 years. 5. The participant is planned for combined heart-lung transplantation, another multi-organ transplantation, or repeat lung transplantation. 6. The participant is clinically unstable, the transplant procedure has been canceled or materially changed, or the transplant team considers the participant unsuitable to proceed with transplantation. 7. The participant or legally authorized representative declines participation or valid informed consent cannot be obtained. 8. Before task activation, weather, airspace, route, landing site, aircraft, propulsion, navigation, communication, monitoring, or energy-reserve conditions fail to meet prespecified operational criteria. 9. A reliable backup transport plan cannot be established, or the study team determines that unmanned-aircraft transport would create an unacceptable risk of donor-lung loss, delay, contamination, or damage. 10. Complete primary timestamps or key engineering parameters are not expected to be obtainable, or postoperative day-90 follow-up is not expected to be feasible. 11. The investigator identifies another medical, ethical, operational, or safety reason that makes study participation inappropriate.