ObjectiveTo systematically review the clinical effect and safety of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in the treatment of cough variant asthma (CVA). MethodsWe searched MEDLINE (Ovid), PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library, VIP, WanFang Data, CNKI and CBM databases to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about TCM for CVA from inception to May 2014. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Then meta-analysis was performed by RevMan 5.2 software. ResultsA total of 17 RCTs were included. The results of qualitative analysis showed that:in improving cough symptom, three of four RCTs showed that TCM was superior to western medicine alone. In improving airway hyper responsiveness and overall treatment effect, the difference between TCM and western medicine alone remained uncertain. No serious adverse reactions related to TCM was reported in 17 RCTs. ConclusionBased on the current evidence, some trials suggest the TCM is superior to western medicine alone in improving cough symptom, however in the improvement of airway hyper responsiveness and overall efficacy, the difference between TCM and western medicine alone remains uncertain. Due to the variety of TCM and western medicine as well as limited methodological quality and different intervention of the included studies, more high-quality RCTs with large scale are needed to verify the above conclusion.