Abstract: Objective To provide decisionmaking information support for recognizing research trends, selecting frontier science and technology, shaping reasonable science and technology distribution, a visualization analysis was applied to the international liver stem cell research. Methods Based on bibliometric method and visualization analysis tools, various fields including publication years, countries of publications, journals and organizations were analyzed exhaustively on publications of international liver stem cells which were searched in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE).In addition, details on main subjects, evolution and research fronts were presented in this paper. Results 1092 publications were searched in SCIE,which were growing rapidly since 2000.The production of China is far behind United States of America and Japan. Publications were distributed in concentrated journals but involved multidisciplinary. Liver stem cells research evolution basically experienced identification,sources,basic application. Research fronts include cell identifications, liver regeneration, cell differentiation, expression of exogenous genes,etc. Conclusion China should increase the liver stem cell funding, strengthen cooperation with the top institutes, independent innovation, leading liver stem cells research from basic research to clinical research.

Key words: Liver stem cell, Bibliometrics, Visualization analysis, Co-word analysis, Co-citation analysis, Cluster analysis