Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of thoracic epidural anesthesia (TEA) combined with general anesthesia (GA) versus GA alone on intrapulmonary shunting during one-lung ventilation (OLV). Methods We searched the Cochrane Library (Issue 4, 2009), the specialized trials registered in the Cochrane anesthesia group, PubMed (1966 to Dec. 2009), EMbase (1966 to Dec. 2008), CBM (1978 to Dec. 2009), VIP (1989 to Dec. 2009), CNKI (1915 to Dec. 2009), and handsearched Clinical Anesthesia Journal and Chinese Anesthesia Journal. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about the effectiveness of TEA combined with GA versus GA alone on intrapulmonary shunting during OLV were included, The methodological quality of included RCTs was evaluated by two reviewers independently, Meta-analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.0 software. Results Ten RCTs involving 506 patients were included. The results of meta-analyses showed that there were no significant differences in intrapulmonary shunting during OLV at different times-points of 5, 15, 20, 30, and 60 minutes after OLV. Conclusion Both TEA combined with GA and GA alone have the same Security during OLV. But owing to the low quality and small sample size of the included studies, further more well-designed, large sample size RCTs are needed.