The study estimated their median cost of retrieving lungs for transplantation increased from $34,000 per patient to $70,203. The price includes fees for transportation, travel time for surgery teams and equipment to preserve the organ while outside the body.

The study results show an organ shuffle, with equal numbers of transplants, but far fewer with local donors. At one time, surgeons said, planes carrying a St. Louis transplant team to Chicago and a Chicago transplant team to St. Louis left around the same time to get organs for their recipients with similar degrees of disease.

Before the change, about 80% of their lung transplants came from donors within their service area, surgeons said. Now 80% come from outside the area.

“That is a tremendous waste of resources,” said Dr. Daniel Kreisel, Washington University’s surgical director of lung transplantation.

Looking at six months of nationwide transplant data following the lung policy change, the study found the number of lung transplants remained steady with 1,142 performed in the six months prior and 1,146 in the six months after. Before the policy change, 169 patients died while on the waitlist or became too sick to undergo surgery. Afterwards, 190 died or became too sick.