Pneumothorax and pulmonary air leakage are common emergency and complication in department of thoracic surgery. The treatment measures of air leakage include conservative observation, needle aspiration, chest tube drainage, surgical operation, and pleurodesis. In selection of treatment methods, there is no unified and feasible standard to choose a reasonable, effective and economic therapeutic regimen. Inapposite treatment will prolong hospitalization days, increase cost, even may lead to death. Therefore, sorting out and summarizing the therapies is vitally important for clinical conduction. We retrieved about 80 reports in PubMed, Sciencedirect, and CNKI while we searched "pneumothorax" or "lung air leakage" and "treatment" as key words or title in recent ten years. We review and summarize the selection and development of them.