ObjectiveTo systematically review the effect of thalidomide as first-line therapy on postrelapse survival rate of patients with multiple myeloma (MM). MethodsDatabases including PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library (Issue 1, 2007) and Web of Science were searched to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about thalidomide as first-line therapy for MM from 2006 to 2011. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Then, meta-analysis was performed by using RevMan 5.1 software. ResultsA total of 16 RCTs involving 6097 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that, compared with the chemotherapy alone group, early application of thalidomide could significantly decrease the postrelapse survival rate (HR=1.23, 95%CI 1.05 to 1.45, P=0.002). Subgroup analysis showed that, compared with the chemotherapy alone group, thalidomide maintenance therapy after autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) couldn’t decrease the postrelapse survival rate (HR=0.90, 95%CI 0.57 to 1.41, P=0.64), but thalidomide induction therapy before ASCT (HR=1.21, 95%CI 1.01 to 1.45, P=0.04) and thalidomide induction therapy before ASCT combined maintenance therapy after ASCT (HR=1.41, 95%CI 1.13 to1.76, P=0.002) could significantly decrease the postrelapse survival rate. ConclusionCurrent evidence shows that, thalidomide maintenance therapy after ASCT for MM is a better therapy regimen. It couldn’t decrease the survival rate after recurrence, but could increase the disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) of patients with MM. Due to the limited quality of included studies, the above conclusion still needs to be verified by more high quality studies.