ObjectivesTo systematically review the association between the expression level of LncRNA and clinicopathological features and prognostic value of gastric cancer.MethodsWe searched PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, CNKI, VIP, WanFang Data and CBM databases to collect studies on the association between LncRNA overexpression and prognosis for gastric cancer from inception to April 2017. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies, then, meta-analysis was performed by using Stata 12.0 software.ResultsA total of 21 case-control studies were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that: LncRNA overexpression patients had poor TNM stage (OR=0.29, 95%CI 0.24 to 0.35, P<0.001), deeper tumor invasion (OR=0.24, 95%CI 0.12 to 0.49,P<0.001), shorter overall survival (OS) (HR=2.52, 95%CI 2.07 to 3.06,P<0.001) and disease-free survival (DFS) (HR=2.31, 95%CI 1.75 to 3.05,P<0.001).ConclusionsLncRNA overexpression is a poor prognosis risk factor for gastric cancer patients. Due to limited quantity and quality of the included studies, more high quality studies are needed to verify above conclusions.