With the continuous development of modern laboratory medicine, the intersection of laboratory medicine and multi-disciplines such as chemistry, physics, and biology has become an inevitable trend, and received extremely extensive attention. As a new nanomaterial with great application prospect in the field of chemistry, quantum dots have brought a new idea for medical laboratory research. This paper summarizes the research status and progress of quantum dots in the diagnosis of infectious diseases, tumors and other diseases. The advantages and disadvantages of existing detection techniques based on quantum dots are discussed in order to provide theoretical thinking for the application of this nanomaterials in laboratory medicine in the future.