Abstract: Liver cancer is still a major disease threatening the lives and health of the Chinese people. For early liver cancer with good liver functional reserve, surgical resection remains as the preferred treatment option. In the past several decades, great advances have been made in hepatectomy because of the refinement of surgical theories, advancements in surgical techniques, and improvements in surgical equipment. However, there are still different understandings in the academic community regarding whether to choose anatomic liver resection, how to choose the surgical margin, the design of surgical methods under the liver "territory theory", and the use of indocyanine green fluorescence imaging technology in liver cancer resection. The authors comprehensively review the current researches on the above issues and the research progress in hepatectomy for liver cancer, aiming to provide references for clinicians to optimize the surgical procedure.