【Abstract】Objective To understand the features of lymphatic vessel, and to summarize the foundation and mechanism of the promotion and inhibition of tumor lymphangiogenesis recorded on the current studies of animal experiments and clinical researches. Methods The related literatures of the structural features of lymphatic vessel, lymphatic endothelial molecular markers, the origin of lymphatic tumors, the molecular mechanisms and regulatory factors were reviewed, and the relationship between tumor lymphangiogenesis and lymphatic metastasis, the treatment targeting at the formation of the anti-tumor lymphatic vessel and its existing problems were also analyzed. Results Hyperplasia of lymphatic vessels occurred during the process of tumor formation and progression. The structural features of the lymphatic vessels in the tumor were conducive to tumor lymphatic metastasis. In recent years, methods of anti-lymphangiogenesis and inhibition of tumor lymphatic metastasis had achieved considerable success in animal experiments. However, there were still a lot of problems need to be solved. Conclusion Tumor lymphangiogenesis has a significantly positive correlation between tumor lymphatic metastasis and patients’ prognosis, which may indicate that treatment against the formation of tumor lymphatic vessel maybe effective.