Objective To summarize the nutritional assessment methods for liver cancer patients and their development, and to provide reference for rationally nutritional assessment and nutritional support. Method Domestic and foreign literatures were searched to summarize the nutritional assessment methods for liver cancer patients and their development, in order to determine a practical and feasible assessment method. Results The evaluation validity of traditionally nutritional assessment methods which contained many individual indicators was low. But subjective global assessment (SGA), mini nutritional assessment (MNA), and nutritional risk screening 2002 (NRS-2002) had similar evaluation validity, this 3 kinds of nutritional assessment methods were more suitable for liver cancer patients compared with the traditionally nutritional assessment methods. Conclusion The clinician should simultaneously apply SGA, MNA, NRS-2002, and other comprehensively nutritional assessment methods, as well as related anthropometric and laboratory indexes, to get a more accurate assessment of the nutritional status for patients with liver cancer.