Background and objective It is common recognized that young patients of lung cancer have poor prognosis due to relatively higher malignancy and more invasive growth. In the past most studies on young patients of lung cancer selected patients younger than 40 or 45 years old, and there were few clinical materials for younger patients under 30 years. This study retrospectively described the the disease history, stage, treatment and pathology features of lung cancer patients younger than 30 years and aimed to provide references for these patients. Methods Those patients younger than 30 years, once admitted in the General Hospital of the People's Liberation Army for lung cancer from 1993 to date, were sought in medical record system, and 53 patients were found in total. In this group, there were 34 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients and 19 small cell lung cacer (SCLC) patients. The male/female ratio was 1.5:1. In the NSCLC patients, there were 27 adenocarcinomas, 6 squamous carcinomas and 1 adenosquamous carcinoma, with no large cell carcinoma involved. In these patients, 12 patients received operations while 38 patients got chemo- and/or radiotherapy and 3 quited any treatment. Results There was no death in hospital, however, in the 12 patients who got operation, only 8 patients got complete resection while 4 patients got palliative resection. Conclusion Lung cancer patients younger than 30 years had a high fraction of adenocarcinoma and small cell type pathologically and most of them were in late stage when presenting with symptoms in hospital and would have a dismal prognosis. The routine health examination and early diagnosis should be emphasized to improve the prognosis of these patients.