Objectives To comprehensively analyse the global scientific outputs of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) research. Methods Data of publications were downloaded from the Web of Science Core Collection. We used CiteSpace IV and Excel 2016 to analyse literature information, including journals, countries/regions, institutes, authors, citation reports and research frontiers. Results Until March 31, 2018, a total of 24,331 papers in HCC research were identified as published between 2008 and 2017. Oncotarget published the most papers. China contributed the most publications and the United States occupied leading positions in H-index value and the number of ESI top papers. Llovet JM owned the highest co-citations. The keyword “transarterial chemoembolization” ranked first in the research front-line. Conclusions The amount of papers published in HCC research has kept increasing since 2008. China showed vast progress in HCC research, but the United States was still the dominant country. Transarterial chemoembolization, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, and cancer stem cell were the latest research frontiers and should be paid more attention
