Objective To systematically evaluate the effectiveness and safety of minimally invasive video-assisted thyroidectomy (MIVAT) and conventional open thyroidectomy (COT) in treatment of thyroid carcinoma without lymph node metastasis. Methods Databases including PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library (Issue 3, 2015), WanFang, CBM, VIP and CNKI were searched to collect the randomized controlled trails (RCTs) and non-RCTs about MIVAT and COT in treatment of thyroid carcinoma without lymph node metastasis. The retrieval time was from inception to October 2015. The studies were screened according to the inclusion and exclusion criterias, and the data was extracted and the quality of studies was evaluated by 2 reviewers independently. Then the Meta-analysis was conducted by using RevMan 5.2 software. Results A total of 13 non-RCTs involving 3 083 cases were included. The results of Meta-analysis showed that: compared with COT group, operative time of MIVAT group was longer (MD=31.36, 95% CI: 27.68-35.03, P<0.05), hospital stay (MD=-0.16, 95% CI: -0.28--0.04, P=0.01) and length of scar (MD=-1.51, 95% CI: -1.63--1.39, P<0.05) of MIVAT group were shorter, but there was no significant difference in the incidences of transient hypocalcemia (OR=1.29, 95% CI: 0.93-1.78, P=0.13), transient laryngeal nerve palsy (OR=1.42, 95% CI: 0.93-2.17, P=0.11), hemotoma (OR=1.21, 95% CI: 0.64-2.29, P=0.56), recurrence (OR=0.61, 95% CI: 0.28-1.33, P=0.22), number of retrieved central lymph nodes (MD=-0.10, 95% CI: -0.98-0.78, P=0.82), and the size of tumors (MD=-0.02, 95% CI: -0.06-0.02, P=0.39) between the 2 groups. Conclusion MIVAT is safe and feasible in treatment of thyroid carcinoma without lymph node metastasis when its indications are strictly controlled.