Objective To analyze the international current status and hotspots of nursing for cancer symptom cluster and provide references for the cancer nursing in China. Methods We searched the Web of Science database and restricted the literature time from the database establishment to 30 May 2016. The retrieval results had been guided into InCites database and bibliographic co-occurrence system, and the implementation of literature metrology and social network analysis were used to analyze the publishing years, core writers, core journals, country/region distributions, etc. Results A total of 2 408 papers wrote by 8 171 authors from 62 regions. The amount of papers showed a trend of rising rapidly year by year, especially in recent 10 years. We selected 17 core authors, and most of them came from the University of California. Four core journals were found, including Cancer Nursing, Oncology Nursing Forum, European Journal of Cancer and European Journal of Oncology Nursing. The United States was the most active region and had published 1 282 papers (53.24%). China, included HongKong, Taiwan and China mainland, had published 197 papers ( 8. 18%) . The hot spots were following:( 1) the symptoms group analysis and symptom management of breast cancer and lung cancer;( 2) the study about fatigue-related symptoms, especially the fatigue with pain, sleep disorders or anxiety/depression;( 3 ) the interaction relationship between symptom clusters and quality of life, functional status, emotional status. Conclusions Symptom clusters has received world-wide attention. However, correlative research starts late in China, which is in primary stage. Chinese scholars can draw lessons from international advanced technology and theory to promote the development of symptom clusters in China.