Objective To analyze the current state of domestic and international research on primary cardiac malignant tumor and predict its future development trends using bibliometric methods.

Methods Relevant literature on “primary cardiac malignant tumor”, from January 1, 2004 to June 1, 2024 was retrieved from the the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Web of Science (WOS) core collection databases. The number of publications in this field over the past 20 years was counted, and the national publication volume, author situation, keyword clustering and emergence, and co-occurrence of authors, institutions, and keywords in the included literature were analyzed using CiteSpace and VOSviewer software.

Results A total of 312 and 775 papers were included in the CNKI and WOS core collections, respectively. WOS core collection data showed that China’s publication volume ranked second globally, but its international cooperation was relatively low with 0.01 of centrality. In the CNKI database, the authors with high publication volume were represented by Chen Dong, Xu Zhiyun, and Song Shutian, while in the WOS core collection, the authors were represented by Reardon Michael J and Gaudino Mario. Some publications included in the WOS core collection from Chinese researchers, but the Chinese researchers were short of research cooperation and continuous academic output. The keyword map analysis showed that “pathological typing”, “echocardiography”, and “surgical treatment” were the research focus in this field for decades. In recent years, research on chemotherapy and molecular mechanisms increased both domestically and internationally, and immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) and other immunotherapy treatment options have gradually been applied to the disease. Compared with domestic research, foreign research focused more on refined imaging diagnosis, in-depth pathological typing, comprehensive treatment, prognosis management, and multicenter research cooperation. However, many studies were case reports.

Conclusions The improvement of surgical plans and the renewal of imaging technology remain the research focus in the field of primary cardiac malignant tumor. Exploring targeted treatments and comprehensive treatments to improve patient prognosis based on molecular pathological mechanisms is the future research trend, and high-quality clinical research based on multicenter and multidisciplinary cooperation is imperative.