ObjectiveTo systematically review the efficacy and safety of hemihepatic blood flow occlusion versus Pringle's maneuver during hepatectomy. MethodsWe electronically searched The Cochrane Library (Issue 8, 2013), PubMed, EMbase, CBM, CNKI, VIP and WanFang Data for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about hemihepatic blood flow occlusion versus Pringle's maneuver during hepatectomy. The duration of search was from the inception of the databases to August 2013. Meanwhile, references of the included studies were also retrieved. After literature selection, data extraction and quality assessment conducted by two reviewers independently, meta-analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.2 software. ResultsSeven studies involving 624 patients were finally included. The results of meta-analysis showed that: a) for safety, Pringle's maneuver was shorter than hemihepatic blood flow occlusion in operation time (SMD=0.34, 95%CI 0.02 to 0.66, P=0.04). But they were alike in intraoperative blood loss, transfusion requirements, hospitalization time, and complications. b) For effectiveness, Pringle's maneuver was lower than hemihepatic blood flow occlusion in the levels of 3rd day ALT (SMD=-0.71, 95%CI-1.28 to-0.14, P=0.02), 7th day ALT (SMD=-1.73, 95%CI-2.85 to-0.62, P=0.002), 1st day AST (SMD=-0.74, 95%CI-1.38 to-0.09, P=0.03), 7th day AST (SMD=-0.99, 95%CI-1.26 to-0.71, P < 0.000 01), 3rd day TBIL (SMD=-0.34, 95%CI-0.57 to-0.10, P=0.005), and 7th day TBIL (SMD=-0.52, 95%CI-1.02 to-0.01, P=0.04). ConclusionCompared to the Pringle's maneuver, hemihepatic blood flow occlusion during hepatectomy could promote the recovery of liver function. However, the number of the included RCTs in the review is small and the quality is low, some of the main information is not reported and the information for analysis lacks. Therefore, the aforementioned conclusion needs to be verified by conducting more large-scale, multicenter and high-quality RCTs.