ObjectTo systematically review the efficacy and safety of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) for children with severe hand, foot and mouth disease in China. MethodDatabases including CNKI, CBM, WanFang Data, PubMed and The Cochrane Library (Issue 2, 2015) were searched to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about IVIG combined with conventional therapy versus conventional therapy alone for severe hand, foot and mouth disease from inception to March 2015. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Then, meta-analysis was performed by using RevMan 5.3 and Stata 9.0 software. ResultA total of 23 RCTs involving 2271 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that, compared with the conventional therapy group, the IVIG group had higher total effective rate (RR=1.18, 95%CI 1.11 to 1.26, P<0.00001), shorter fever relieving time (MD=-1.47, 95%CI -1.80 to -1.15, P<0.00001), shorter rash regression time (MD=-1.61, 95%CI -2.51 to -0.71, P=0.0005), shorter remission time of nervous symptoms (MD=-2.14, 95%CI -3.02 to -1.25, P<0.00001), shorter mouth ulcer regression time (MD=-1.36, 95%CI -2.27 to -0.4, P=0.004), and shorter average length of hospital stay (MD=-2.46, 95%CI-3.29 to -1.63, P<0.00001). ConclusionCompared with conventional therapy alone, IVIG combined with conventional therapy can improve the effect for severe hand, foot and mouth disease. Due to the limited quality of the include studies, more high quality studies are needed to verify the above conclusion.