ObjectiveTo investigate the clinical efficacy of unilateral antegrade selective cerebral perfusion (UASCP) compared to bilateral antegrade selective cerebral perfusion (BASCP) in aortic surgery.MethodsPubMed, EBSCO, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, CBM, CNKI, Wanfang Database were searched from establishment of each database to January 2019 to identify clinical studies on prognosis of UASCP versus BASCP in aortic surgery patients. The quality of randomized controlled trials was assessed by Cochrane risk assessement tool. The quality of non-randomized controlled trials was assessed by the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale ( NOS). Meta-analyses were presented in terms of odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) by using RevMan 5.3 software.ResultsSixteen eligible studies including 3 randomized controlled trials, 2 propensity matching score studies, and 11 retrospective case control studies including4 490 patients were identified. The 3 randomized controlled trials were with high bias risk. The NOS score of the other 13 studies was more than 6 stars. Pooled analysis showed no significant difference between the UASCP and BASCP groups in terms of permanent neurological dysfunction (PND) (OR=0.93, 95%CI 0.74 to 1.18, P=0.57), temporary neurological dysfunction (TND) (OR=1.26, 95%CI 0.94 to 1.69, P=0.12), acute kidney injury rate (OR=1.11, 95%CI 0.79 to 1.55, P=0.55), 30-day mortality (OR=0.94, 95%CI 0.67 to 1.32, P=0.72), length of ICU stay (OR=–0.64, 95%CI –1.66 to 0.37, P=0.22) and hospital stay (OR=–0.35, 95%CI –2.38 to 1.68, P=0.74).ConclusionThis meta-analysis shows that UASCP and BASCP administration do not result in different mortality and neurologic morbidity rates. However, more studies with good methodologic quality and large sample are still needed to make further assessment.