An integrative review of the literature was performed with the aim of characterizing the researches produced by the Brazilian oncology nursing. The bibliographic research covered national nursing publications, from 1980 to 2004, on the Lilacs and BDENF data bases; from which 91 articles were identified and, of the total, 84 composed the final sample of the study. The analysis of the studies allowed identify that they have been published most frequently on the Brazilian Journal of Carncerology and that the publications were increased after the year 2000. In relation to the identification of the authors, most are university professors (41.5%), 85.3% of the researchers are nurses, 33.4% are from the Ribeirão Preto School of Nursing of the University of São Paulo and from the Federal University of São Paulo. Most of the studies were developed in the Southeast region of Brazil. Of the total studies, 52.4% were found by using Lilacs; the most used keywords were nursing and cancer (72.6%); 66.7% made a clear statement, 23.8% did not present any goals, and 9.5% did not present their goals appropriately and 19,0% were derived from dissertations or thesis. Among the research schemes, 36.9% used the qualitative methodological approach, 21.4% used the quantitative methodological approach, 9.5% performed quanti-qualitative studies, and 32.1% did not state the used method. In terms of ethics, 41.7% of the studies did not make any statement. Of the studies, 65.5% presented characteristics of the studied samples, and 34.5% did not. A total of 45.2% of the studies investigated patients with different types of cancer, being nursing in gynecology the area with the highest number of investigations. In relation to the thematic area, nursing actuation stands out with a total of 16,6%. Of the total, 39.3% of the studies presented a theoretical background, 97.6% presented literature reviews in all steps of the research process, 89.3% presented final considerations or conclusions, 65.5% comply with the goals, and 71.4% made recommendations for the profession's development. We identified the great interest of nursing on the qualitative methodological approach, due to the high number of studies. However, since the results showed there is a lack of important elucidations to demonstrate the rigor of the analyzed studies, we consider that there still isn't a corpus of studies that allow the meta-analysis or metasynthesis of knowledge. We point out that this corpus increases the difficulty of applying the research results to the practice of nursing aid in oncology. In addition, we suggest identifying priorities in research on oncology nursing, refining the strategies of synthesis of research results, creating a research culture within health institutions, developing studies related to the most incident types of cancer, replicate studies in other contexts, conducting studies rigorously by respecting the steps of the scientific method and enhancing the development of reports forwarded for publication, in a way that research on oncology nursing m...
