What are the effects of having only one lung?

A dash of perspective by Rawel Sidhu and Michael Panderla

Although rare, it is possible to be born with only one lung. Such a birth defect can highly increase the infant mortality rate for the child, and it could greatly decrease their chance of survival without proper equipment and specialized ventilation. Victims of lung cancer or lung trauma often require the surgical removal of the effected lung.

Patients with only one lung sharply increase their risk of contracting pneumonia and other lung diseases. Subsequently, lung cancer patients can often find their other lung at risk of cancer or other breathing impediments, thus the usage of a ventilator may be required.

SRxA, a pharmaceutical consulting firm, confirms that"In America alone, it’s estimated that more than 40,000 people have only one lung. And most of them do just fine because the body tends to compensate by making the other lung grow larger."http://srxawordonhealth.com/2013/03/15/life-without-a-lung-and-other-vital-organs/

Interestingly enough, the newly appointed Pope, Pope Francis, has only one lung, which hasn't prevented him from performing his duties as the head of the Catholic Church. Removal of one lung itself hasn't been all to modern, as pneumonectomy has been around since the 1950's, where the lack of antibiotics made post-surgery fatalities all to common. Nevertheless, with the influx of modern medicine, the removal of one lung no longer carries with it the death sentence it once held, and with the advent of even more discoveries in science, the outlook for patients needing the removal of one lung seems brighter than ever.