ObjectiveTo systematically review the efficacy and safety of laparoscopic Heller's myotomy (LHM) versus pneumatic dilatation (PD) for achalasia. MethodsDatabases including PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library (Issue 8, 2015), Web of Knowledge, CNKI, CBM, WanFang Data and VIP were searched from inception to August 26th 2015, to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of LHM versus PD for achalasia. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Then, meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3 software. ResultsA total of 5 RCTs involving 446 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that, compared with PD, LHM could significantly improve the effective rates after 3-month and 1-year follow-up (OR=2.66, 95%CI 1.08 to 6.60, P=0.03; OR=2.24, 95%CI 1.29 to 3.87, P=0.004). There were no statistical differences between the two groups in effective rate after more than 2-year follow-up (OR=1.749, 95%CI 0.99 to 3.23, P=0.05) and incidence of complications (OR=0.27, 95%CI 0.06 to 1.13, P=0.07). ConclusionCurrent evidence shows that, compared with PD, LHM could improve the short-term effective rate but could not improve the long-term (2-3 years) effective rate and reduce the incidence of complications. Due to limited quality and quantity of the included studies, more high quality studies are needed to verify the above conclusion.