Objective  To perform a visualized analysis in related literatures of lupus nephritis (LN) based on CiteSpace software.

  Methods  Based on the theme of "lupus nephritis", the related literatures in core database of Web of Science were searched from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2020. CiteSpace software was used to analyze the related topics such as authors, institutions, countries and journals.

  Results  A total of 5 397 literatures were collected, and the number of published papers showed an increasing trend year by year. The most papers were published in journals involving rheumatology, immunology and pharmacology, and the average impact factor of the top 10 published journals was 3 points. CHAIM PUTTERMAN and CHANDRA MOHAN were the author with the most published articles on LN (41 articles), and WEENING J J was the most influential author with 1 007 cited documents. The most of the literatures were from the United States and China, with 1 005 and 915 papers respectively. The numbers of the top 6 cited references were 241, 193, 166, 156, 136 and 129 times respectively, and the research topics focused on diagnosis and treatment, expert consensus and effect comparison between clinical drugs. The top 5 frequencies of keywords were long-term treatment, intravenous infusion of cyclophosphamide, azathioprine, complement and maintenance therapy. Prediction of the frontier hot spots in this field was about the basic pathological research and the clinical effect of drugs.

  Conclusion  Overall research in the field of lupus nephritis has been improved. The research cooperation between China and foreign countries is not close, so we should further study its molecular mechanism, and continue to carry out clinical and animal experiments, so as to gradually improve the research system in this field.