Abstract: Peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC), defined as the primary or secondary occurrence/progression of malignant tumor in peritoneum, is a long-standing challenge in clinical oncology. Over the past 40 years, PC has been gradually becoming a hot-spot and research focus in clinical oncology, with the promising development of academic definitions, basic researches and pathologic theories, clinical practice, thus developing into the discipline of peritoneal surface oncology. As a new discipline and an outcome of clinical oncology practice, peritoneal surface oncology has made periodic progress in knowledge system, core technologies, and talent teams. Also, there are a lot of academic disputes in this field. This work aimed to systemically review the research process of PC and the current status of the disciplinary development of peritoneal surface oncology, so as to better guide the comprehensive development of peritoneal surface oncology.