Every year, during health check-ups, there are often individual friends who are told by doctors that a “shadow” or “nodule” has been found in their lungs. When hearing such news, some people do not take it seriously and ignore it; more people are alarmed and feel that their personal lives and even their entire families are overshadowed. So how do you look at these small nodular lesions found in the lungs by chance? What should be done after further detection? Many friends feel very confused about these questions. For this reason, experts remind us that nodules in the lungs should not be ignored. The possible diagnoses of small nodular lesions in the lungs can be diverse, including benign ones such as inflammatory pseudotumors, misshapen tumors and tuberculosis spheres, while malignant ones may be primary lung cancer or metastatic cancer in the lungs. Some benign lesions may also transform to malignant after a long period of time. According to the statistics of a large population sample, more than half of the small solitary nodules in the lung with a diameter greater than 1 cm are malignant. This data tells us that small nodules in the lung found unintentionally during physical examination should never be taken lightly. Traditionally, there has been a lack of safe and economical follow-up treatment options for these small nodules. This is because, on the one hand, the nature of the lesion can only be finally determined by trying to obtain some of the tumor tissue or cells for pathological examination; on the other hand, it is difficult to make a definitive diagnosis of these small nodular lesions by traditional methods, such as fiberoptic bronchoscopy or percutaneous mass aspiration. In view of this, an aggressive decision is to open the chest for exploration, but the huge trauma of surgery often discourages many patients. Another option is to review them regularly and observe them closely. However, there are often patients who find tumor enlargement or metastasis in the chest cavity during the observation process and miss the valuable opportunity of early surgery. It is important to know that the 5-year survival rate (an important indicator of tumor prognosis) of early stage lung cancer treatment can reach 70%-80%, while late stage lung cancer is below 10%. It can be argued that the uncertainty of follow-up treatment has overshadowed the health benefits brought by advances in imaging technology. Professor Tao’s experience is a typical example of this dilemma. The 70-year-old Tao, a professor at a university, was found to have a small nodular lesion with a diameter of nearly 1 cm around the lingual segment of the upper lobe of the left lung during a routine physical examination 3 years ago. At the time of multiple consultations, some experts believed that the possibility of benign was high and suggested that it could be followed and observed, but others suggested that malignant lesions could not be excluded and that early surgery was advisable. Tao, who has a high demand for quality of life and health, was undoubtedly caught in a dilemma, but he finally could not summon up the courage to choose surgery. He began to live a life of “close observation” with fear and trepidation. 3 years down the line, more than 10 CTs were taken of his lungs alone. But fate still played a joke on him. 3 years later, the nodules had increased in size compared to the previous ones, and the final surgery confirmed that the tumor was not only malignant, but also had metastasis in the mediastinal lymph nodes, so the effect of the surgery had obviously been greatly reduced. In the past two decades, with the joint active efforts of Prof. Wang Jun and other experts from the Minimally Invasive Thoracic Center of Peking University People’s Hospital, the TV thoracoscopic technique has been developed and popularized in China and has become the best choice to solve this dilemma. In this technique, comprehensive exploration and complete resection of intrapulmonary lesions can be accomplished through 2-3 very small chest wall incisions. If the intraoperative rapid pathology is reported to be benign within 30 minutes, the operation can be concluded and the heartache removed at the same time; if it is malignant, it is immediately treated as a radical lung cancer resection. It really makes the health check-up play its proper role. Thoracoscopic surgery is less traumatic, less painful, faster recovery, and the effect is the same as traditional open-heart surgery, so it is easily accepted by patients and medical and surgical doctors. At present, in some large general hospitals in China, due to the common application of this technology, it can be said that it has fundamentally changed the treatment strategy for small nodular diseases in the lungs. The patient’s fear of major surgery, the risk of long-term follow-up, and the resulting financial cost have all been solved by the application of this technology.