ObjectiveTo systematically review the efficacy and safety of endoscopic radial artery harvesting for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). MethodsDatabases including The Cochrane Library (Issue2, 2015), PubMed, EMbase, CBM, CNKI, WanFang Data and VIP were searched electronically from inception to August 2015 to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and cohort studies about endoscopic radial artery harvesting technique versus traditional incision technique for CABG. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Then, meta-analysis was performed by using RevMan 5.2 software. ResultsA total of 12 studies involving 1359 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that no significant differences were found between the two groups in perioperative mortality (OR=0.66, 95%CI 0.17 to 2.57, P=0.55), the incidence of postoperative myocardial infarction (OR=0.78, 95%CI 0.30 to 2.06, P=0.62), vascular graft patency rate (OR=1.40, 95%CI 0.80 to 2.45, P=0.24) and the incidence of wound infection (OR=0.59, 95%CI 0.33 to 1.07, P=0.08). The endoscopic group showed significantly lower incidence of hematoma formation (OR=0.39, 95%CI 0.20 to 0.74, P=0.004) and paresthesia (OR=0.44, 95%CI 0.22 to 0.88, P=0.02) than that of the incision group. ConclusionCurrent evidence shows that, compared with the incision technique, the endoscopic radial artery harvesting could significantly reduce the incidence of hematoma formation and paresthesia in patients underwent CABG. Due to the limited quantity and quality of the included studies, the above conclusions still need to be verified by carrying out more high-quality studies.