Abstract: Objective To investigate the postoperative complications and 5-year survival rate of splenectomy and spleen preservation in radical gastrectomy for gastric cancer. Methods All eligible case-control studies published up to Febuary 2014 were searched out from PubMed， EMABSE， CBM， CNKI， VIP and WanFang databases. Two reviewers independently identified the literature according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Metaanalysis was performed using STATA 11.0 software to analyze. Results A total of 16 studies comprising 1949 patients with splenectomy （resection group） and 2864 patients with splenic preservation （preservation group） were finally included. The included studies showed good homogeneity in the models of postoperative complications and 5-year survival rate. Overall， the rate of postoperative complications was higher （OR=1.699，95％ CI： 1.436-2.009） and the 5-year survival rate was lower （OR=0.402，95％ CI： 0.363-0.445） in resection group versus preservation group （P＜0.05）.Conclusion The preservation of spleen in the radical gastrectomy for gastric cancer can reduce the incidence of postoperative complications and improve the survival of patients.