ObjectiveTo evaluate systematically the relationship between obesity and clinical prognosis in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) patients.MethodsA systematic search was performed in Pubmed, EMBASE, Cochrane databases, Wiley, Ovid, Medline, CNKI, VIP and Wanfang. All studies that reported obesity in the clinical prognosis of ARDS and acute lung injury were included. A meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.0 and Stata 10.0.ResultsA total of 28 368 patients from 9 studies were included in this meta-analysis. The combined results showed that obesity was associated with the decreased mortality of ARDS [odds ratio(OR)=0.63, 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) 0.41 to 0.98, P=0.04]. In subgroup analysis, the result showed no obvious relationship between obesity and 28-day mortality in ARDS/ALI (OR=0.92, 95%CI 0.55 to 1.54, P=0.76). However, obesity was associated with lower risk of 60days and 90-day mortality in ARDS/ALI (60-day: OR=0.84, 95%CI 0.75 to 0.94, P=0.002; 90-day: OR=0.38, 95%CI 0.22 to 0.66, P=0.000 5). Compared with normal weight patients with ARDS, hospital length of stay, ICU length of stay, and duration of mechanical ventilation did not differ significantly [hospital length of stay: weighted mean difference (WMD)=3.61, 95%CI –0.36 to 7.57, P=0.07; intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay: WMD=1.52, 95%CI –0.22 to 3.26, P=0.09; duration of mechanical ventilation: WMD=–0.50, 95%CI –2.18 to 1.19, P=0.56], but ventilator-free days was significantly longer in obese patients (WMD=2.68, 95%CI 0.86 to 4.51, P=0.004).ConclusionsObesity is not associated with hospital length of stay, ICU length of stay, and duration of mechanical ventilation in patients with ARDS. However, obesity is associated with a reduction of long-term mortality and increased ventilator-free days in the patients with ARDS. Additional larger randomized controlled studies are needed to confirm the possible role of obesity in the clinical prognosis of ARDS.