ObjectiveTo evaluate the effects and safety of edaravone combined with shuxuening for cerebral infarction. MethodsThe Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMbase, CBM, CNKI and VIP databases were searched from their establishments up to March 31, 2013. We used the method recommended by the Cochrane collaboration to perform a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trails (RCTs) with RevMan 5.0 software. ResultsSeventeen studies were included. The results of Meta-analysis demonstrated that edaravone combined with shuxuening were more efficient in reducing the score of neural function deficient scale and higher in the total effective rate (P<0.05), while there was no difference in the incidence of adverse reactions (P>0.05). ConclusionThe study suggests that edaravone combined with shuxuening is effective for cerebral infarction, but it also needs further studies to provide more sufficient evidence.