ObjectiveTo investigate PTEN expression and its relationship with clinicopathologic features in patients with gastric cancer. MethodsWe searched published studies in PubMed, EMbase, CNKI, VIP, WangFang Data and CBM from the day of establishment to July 24th, 2013. Some other relevant references were also searched to collect all the case-control studies. Two reviewers independently screened studies according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted data and assessed quality of the included studies independently. Then meta-analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.2 software. ResultsA total of 14 studies were recruited, which included 1 026 cases in the gastric cancer group and 539 cases in the normal gastric mucosa group. The results of meta-analysis showed that PTEN expression was lower in the gastric cancer group than in the normal gastric mucosa group, with a significant difference[OR=0.07, 95%CI (0.05, 0.10), P<0.000 01]. No significant difference was detected in age[OR=1.34, 95%CI (0.88, 2.04), P=0.17] and sex[OR=0.91, 95%CI (0.60, 1.36), P=0.64]. There were significant differences in terms of tumor length[OR=3.67, 95%CI (2.02, 6.67), P<0.000 1], histologic subtype[OR=3.54, 95%CI (2.56, 4.91), P<0.000 01], invasion depth[OR=3.36, 95%CI (2.41, 4.67), P<0.000 01], lymphatic metastasis[OR=4.11, 95%CI (2.98, 5.67), P<0.000 01], and TNM stage[OR=3.94, 95%CI (2.74, 5.65), P<0.000 01]. ConclusionPTEN expression reduces in gastric cancer, and its lower expression increases malignant behaviors of gastric cancer.