Abstract: Lung transplantation is the only effective treatment of end-stage lung diseases. Nevertheless, shortage of donor lungs has become increasingly prominent worldwide. A large quantity of patients died while waiting for lung transplantation. Urgent lung transplantation is a prioritized allocation strategy for donor lung transplantation according to the urgency of diseases, aiming to shorten the waiting time for donor lungs and reduce the fatality of patients on the waiting list for lung transplantation. However, no consensus has been reached worldwide on the definition, criteria and application of the terminology of urgent lung transplantation. In addition, the survival and net benefits of lung transplant recipients based on this allocation system are still controversial. On the basis of previous clinical research on urgent lung transplantation, the definition criteria, risk factors, survival outcomes, limitations and optimization measures were explicitly elucidated in this article, aiming to provide theoretical reference for comprehensive evaluation of the feasibility of urgent lung transplantation and further optimizing the allocation system of donor lungs.