ObjectiveTo systematically review the relationship between the expression of CXCL12/CXCR4 and pancreatic cancer.MethodsPubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library, Wiley Online Library, CNKI, VIP, WanFang Data and CBM databases were electronically searched to collect case-control studies on CXCL12/CXCR4 expression in pancreatic cancer from inception to February 1st 2020. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies; then, meta-analysis was performed by using RevMan 5.3 software.ResultsA total of 21 case-control studies involving 1 677 cases and 1 690 controls were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that the expression of CXCR4 in pancreatic cancer tissue was higher than normal tissue (OR=21.40, 95%CI 5.70 to 80.31, P<0.01), in carcinoma of head of pancreas been higher than carcinoma of pancreatic body and tail, (OR=1.58, 95%CI 1.02 to 2.44, P=0.04), in pancreatic cancer with lymph node metastasis been higher than without lymph node metastasis (OR=3.14, 95%CI 1.98 to 4.99, P<0.01), in pancreatic cancer with high TNM stages (Ⅲ, Ⅳ) been higher than low TNM stages (Ⅰ, Ⅱ) (OR=3.67, 95%CI 1.98 to 6.81, P<0.01), in pancreatic cancer with distant metastasis been higher than without distant metastasis (OR=3.56, 95%CI 1.71 to 7.39, P<0.01), and in pancreatic cancer with vascular invasion was higher than without vascular invasion (OR=3.22, 95%CI 1.70 to 6.09, P<0.01). The expression of CXCR4 was not statistically correlated with age, gender, pancreatic cancer tissue and paracancerous tissue, pancreatic cancer tissue and paracancerous lymph nodes, differentiation degree. There was no statistical correlation between the expression of CXCL12 and the differentiation degree, and lymph node metastasis.ConclusionsIn pancreatic cancer, the high expression of CXCR4 is related to lymph node metastasis, high TNM stage, distant metastasis, vascular invasion indicate poor prognosis. Due to limited quality and quantity of the included studies, more high quality studies are required to verify above conclusions.