Objective To assess the clinical application of lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) as the early warning index for cerebral ischemic stroke (CIS). Methods Trials were collected through electronic searches of PubMed, The Cochrane Library, CBM, CNKI, Wanfang, and VIP (from the date of database establishment to June 2009). We screened the retrieved studies according to the predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria, evaluated the quality of the included studies, performed descriptive analysis and meta-analysis with The Cochrane Collaboration’s RevMan 4.2 software. Results A total of 22 studies were included. The results of meta-analyses showed that, there was a significant difference about LPA level in cerebral infarction (CI) group vs. healthy control group (WMD=2.00, 95%CI 1.85 to 2.15), and in transient ischemia attach (TIA) group vs. healthy control group (WMD=2.48, 95%CI 2.18 to 2.78); and a difference was noted about 24 hours LPA level in CI group vs. healthy control group (WMD=2.40, 95%CI 1.81 to 2.99). Conclusions According to the included studies, the contents of LPA is higher in CIS than that in healthy control group. It would be helpful to measure LPA in the TIA period for intervention. However, more high quality trials are expected for further study, in order to prove the value of LPA as early warning index because of the heterogeneity and poor quality of the current included studies.