In recent years limited operations including wedge resection, segmentectomy and simple lobectomy are getting increased as a treatment of choice for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, surgery for lung cancer should be emphasized in terms of postoperative quality of life as well as complete resection or radical resection of the tumor. There have been few number of randomized controlled trials as to limited operation of lung cancer. Thus this kind of procedures such as wedge resection and segmentectomy for stage I NSCLC, and thoracoscopic lobectomy for stage I lung cancer, is not generally evaluated as an alternative treatment to the standard operation at the present time. In this paper current status of limited surgery for lung cancer is reviewed mainly based on recent literatures and results obtained from our experience in Institute of Development Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University.