Associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy (ALPPS) is a new approach for two-stage hepatectomy procedure developed in recent years. The major advantages of ALPPS are offering rapid hypertrophy of the future liver remnant (FLR), and higher rates of the completion of the second-stage procedure and R0 resection compared to the traditional two-stage hepatectomies, which give hope to patients with liver malignancies considered unresectable due to an insufficient FLR. In this paper, the authors address the research progress on the mechanisms of ALPPS causing rapid FLR hypertrophy and relevant factors.