Nowadays, regular medical checkups are becoming more and more important, and lung nodules are increasingly found during medical examinations. Pulmonary nodules are well-defined lesions with opaque images, ≤30 mm in diameter, surrounded by air-containing lung tissue, and are found in isolated pulmonary nodules in more than 0.2% of chest X-rays during physical examinations. The current combination of multiple methods can improve the accuracy of diagnosing benign and malignant pulmonary nodules. Non-invasive methods include chest CT, PET/CT examination and serum tumor marker testing, while invasive methods include percutaneous or bronchoscopic lung aspiration biopsy and open chest biopsy. For the management of small intrapulmonary nodules, the current expert consensus is that for nodules less than 8 mm without evidence of malignancy, regular observation of imaging changes is the main management strategy; whereas for nodules less than 8 mm and nodules between 8 and 30 mm that are highly suspected of malignancy after the above-mentioned examinations, the management should be more aggressive, with surgical exploration (thoracoscopy or open chest) as the main focus, because if a malignant lesion is eventually diagnosed at metastasis can occur at an early stage, and observation and follow-up will lose the best time for surgery; while for benign lesions, surgery will also remove psychological stress from the patient and prevent their malignancy. A wedge resection of the lesion can be chosen for lesions determined to be benign by rapid pathology during surgery, while lobectomy with lymph node dissection is feasible for malignant lesions.