Abstract
BACKGROUND: In the past few decades, the field of microbiota research has experienced rapid development and growth. We have employed bibliometric methods to comprehensively visualize and analyze the global knowledge and hotspots in the field of microbiome-intratumoral microbiota in liver cancer. METHOD: The relevant literature in this field from 2009 to 2025 was extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection Database. After the data was extracted, it was analyzed and visualized using CiteSpace, VOSviewer and R (bibliometrix) software. RESULT: A total of 1001 publications on microbiome - intratumoral microbiota and liver cancer were published during the period 2009–2025. Among these, China had the highest number of publications (n = 495). The most prolific institution publishing on microbiome - intratumoral microbiota and liver cancer was Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China (n = 29). The author with the most publications on this topic was Yu, Jun (n = 14, 1.4%). The journal with the highest number of publications on this subject was Cancers (n = 41, 4.1%). The top seven keywords with a frequency of 100 or more include: gut microbiota, hepatocellular carcinoma, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, fatty liver disease, cancer, inflammation, bile acids, liver cancer, cell, and insulin resistance. Recent emerging topics include “intratumoral microbiota” (since 2024) and “tumor microenvironment.” CONCLUSION: Current research in this field primarily investigates the mechanistic associations between gut microbiota and hepatic malignancies, with particular emphasis on hepatocellular carcinoma. The scientific frontier has progressively evolved to encompass the exploration of intratumoral microbiota and its multifaceted interactions within the tumor microenvironment. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13027-026-00750-x.