AIM:To explore the distribution and growth of research articles on cataract,providing bibliometric information for cataract researchers.METHODS:Research articles on cataract published in PubMed from 1813 to 2010 were analyzed by bibliometric method.Distribution of No.of articles by time,characteristics of journals,language,type of article,vice mesh,characteristics of subjects,full articles and accessibility were statistically analyzed.RESULTS:During 1813-2010,there were 45868 cataract research literatures in the PubMed database.According to PubMed database literature type,they were categorized as follow:Review(n=2957),Randomized Controlled Trial(n=1890),Practice Guideline(n=22),Meta-Analysis(n=62),Letter(n=2142),Editorial(n=505),Clinical Trial(n=2897),Others(n=35767);MEDLINE(n=43838) and Others(n=2030);Nursing journals(n=457),Core clinical journals(n=4093),Others(n=41318);Man(n=18527),Woman(n=17837),Others(n=9504);Humans(n=36577),Animals(n=6015),Others(n=3290);Infant(n=3144),Child(n=5386),Adolescent(n=4392),Adult(n=10485),Aged(n=18649),80 and over(n=5993);Links to full text(n=23616),Links to free full text(n=6575),Abstracts(n=28682).From 1946 to 2010,the number of literatures by year approximated straight line(Y =598.71X-689.92,R2=0.9746).Chinese cataract literatures in PubMed appeared in 1946,and increased obviously since 1961.The cataract literatures is primarily in English(34655,75.6%),Chinese publication literatures arranged at 7th(732,1.59%).10299 literatures(23%) were retrieved in 22 journals on ophthalmology(SCI-indexed).CONCLUSION:Our results showed that cataract research was conducted at early time,but it is not a hot topic until 1960s of last century.Cataract research is still a focus by now,which is evidenced by the linear growth of the number of articles.