Objective To investigate the current research and development trend of acute postoperative pain in the past 15 years and provide reference for further research in this field. Methods The core collection of the Web of Science database was retrieved and the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI‑E) was used for data extraction. The retrieval time was from January 2007 to December 2021. The types of literature included were articles and reviews. The number of publications, distribution of journals and disciplines, countries, institutions and authors, the top 10 total citations, keywords and emergent terms were analyzed. Results A total of 5 475 articles and reviews related to acute postoperative pain were included, where the publication of the United States ranked the top (1 814 articles, 33.13%), followed by China (508 articles, 9.28%). The institution with the highest number of publications was the League of European Research Universities (343 articles, 6.26%). The author with the highest number of publications was Moore from University of Oxford (66 articles, 1.21%). The main disciplines involved in the literature related to acute postoperative pain were anesthesiology (1 337 articles, 24.42%), surgery (1 195 articles, 21.83%), and neurosciences neurology (891 articles, 16.27%). The top 10 journals with the highest number of publications related to acute postoperative pain had an average impact factor of 5.701 in 2021, and the number of publications accounted for 16.24% of the results of this study search (889/5 475). The key words of acute postoperative pain research mainly focused on "prevention", "chronic postsurgical pain", "enhanced recovery", and "nerve block". Conclusions In the past 15 years, research related to acute postoperative pain is in a rapid development stage. China has made great progress in the number of publications, but there is still a gap between the quality of publications and that of Western countries. Research in future should focus on "nerve block", "enhanced recovery", "prevention", and "chronic postsurgical pain" to facilitate deepened studies.