Objective: To retrospectively analyze the application trend of cohort study in the field of liver cancer in past 27 years and to look forward to the future development trend. Methods: Chinese and English papers reporting the cohort studies of liver cancer conducted in the mainland of China since 1991 were included. The literature management software was used to analyze the publication time, institution, type and objective of the studies and the follow-up performance. Statistical analysis was carried out by using SPSS 21.0. Results: The number and quality of the papers reporting liver cancer-related cohort studies increased significantly in past 27 years and a core English journal group of this field has formed. The average annual growth rates of Chinese and English papers published were 20.4% and 35.2% respectively. About 52.3% of the Chinese papers and 73.5% of the English papers were published in past five years and the quality of these papers was high. The Chinese papers published on Chinese core journals accounted for 49.2%, and the English papers published on SCI periodicals (IF>3) accounted for 47.3%. For the study objective, those published on the domestic journals mainly focused on the pathogenesis of hepatoma (41.5%), studies with large sample size was the common form. The SCI studies mainly focused on the prognosis of liver cancer (40.7%). High-quality SCI papers are more interested in the studies of prognosis, and survival analysis was the common form. Conclusions The application of cohort study in the field of liver cancer gradually increased in China. Large-scale study and prognosis analysis were conducted commonly. However, it is necessary to further improve the researchers’ understanding of cohort study, improve the follow-up quality, and increase the application of scientific evaluation methods, such as survival analysis, for the better solving of clinical problems.