Another important thing I forgot is old damage to the lungs normally calcifies, so yours being non calcified is more suspicious also, or it would at least mean if it's from inflammation that is more recent.
Oh and they could do Broncoscope with lavage also just to rule out infection more, but if you don't have chronic cough/fever/elavated white count that would probably be unlikely.
Hi SusieQ2u,
This is a tuff decision, nodules are usually taken more serious when they get to 10mm and bigger and yours is still a little smaller than that. The majority of the time these nodules are benign and are left overs from infection or anything that causes an intense inflammatory response like you said allergic reaction to chemicals and are just monitored by a succession of CT scans. Although it's more typical to see multiple 1-6mm sized nodules in someone that has had severe infection or inflammation, so you just having the one bigger one does seem a little more suspicious, and you do have high risk factors.
That all being said what makes lung cancer so dangerous and lethal is most people don't have symptoms until it's already stage 3 or 4. Many peoples first noticeable symptom will be loosing their voice or coughing up blood and by that time there's no surgery that can help them.
Hopefully the PET scan will be able to tell better what it's made of and sometimes they can use PET to guide a biopsy needle but he may be worried about hitting your aorta which could be pretty devastating, if they can't another alternative could be to do a surgical biopsy and leave the lung in tact, but if it did come back malignant you would end up having two surgeries. I've never had lung nodules or cancer myself personally maybe someone else who has can talk about their experience.
Take care