ObjectiveTo systematically review the efficacy and safety of robotic-assisted hepatectomy (RAH) versus traditional laparoscopic hepatectomy (TLH) for hepatic neoplasms.MethodsDatabases including PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, CNKI, WanFang Data and CBM databases were electronically searched to collect cohort studies about the RAH vs. the TLH for liver neoplasms from inception to December 10th, 2016. Two reviewers independently screened the literatures, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of the included studies. And finally, a meta-analysis was performed by using RevMan 5.3 software.ResultsA total of 17 studies involving 1 389 patients were included. The meta-analysis results showed that: compared to TLH group, RAH group was associated with more estimated blood loss (WMD=39.56, 95%CI 4.65 to 74.47, P=0.013), longer operative time SMD=0.55, 95%CI 0.29 to 0.80, P<0.001), and later in the first nutritional intake time (SMD=1.06, 95%CI 0.66 to 1.45,P<0.001). However, there were no significant differences in the length of hospital stay, conversion to laparotomy, intraoperative blood transfusion, resection rate of tumor margin, complications and 90-day mortality between the two groups.ConclusionCurrent evidence indicates that TLH is superior to RAH in terms of operative time, intraoperative blood loss and the first nutritional intake time, but there are no statistically significant differences in the primary outcomes, suggesting that RAH and TLH have similar efficacy and safety for hepatic neoplasms. Due to the limitation of quality and quantity of the included studies, the above conclusions need to be verified by more high-quality research.