Objective To assess the safety and effectiveness of laparoscopic hysterectomy (LH) for women with benign gynecological diseases. Methods Such databases as CENTRAL (The Cochrane Library, Issue 5, 2012), MEDLINE, EMbase, CNKI, WanFang Data, VIP and CBM were searched from the date of their establishment to May 2012, meanwhile the relevant gray literature was also retrieved to identify the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about LH versus abdominal hysterectomy (AH) for benign gynecological diseases. The literature was screened according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria by two reviewers independently, and the methodology quality was evaluated after extracting the data, then RevMan 5.1 software was used for meta-analysis. Results A total of 22 RCTs involving 3 304 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that, compared with AH, LH was shorter in the time of both hospital stay (MD=–2.31, 95%CI –3.03 to –1.60, Plt;0.000 01) and postoperative recovery (MD=−13.86, 95%CI −17.70 to −10.03, Plt;0.000 01), and lower in the incidences of both postoperative fever and other nonspecific infections (OR=0.72, 95%CI 0.54 to 0.95, P=0.02), but it was higher in the incidence rate of intraoperative urinary systematic injuries (OR=2.41, 95%CI 1.21 to 4.82, P=0.012), and longer in the operation time (MD=20.27, 95%CI 3.95 to 36.59, P=0.03). There were no significant differences between the two groups in the incidence of complications such as intraoperative intestinal injuries, vessel injuries, postoperative fistulizaion, postoperative urethral dysfunction, postoperative vaginal infection, etc. (Pgt;0.05). Conclusion This systematic review shows when treating benign gynecological diseases, LH is superior to AH in shortening the time of hospital stay and postoperative recovery, and in decreasing the incidence of operative fever and other nonspecific infections, but it results in a higher incidence of intraoperative urinary systematic injuries and longer operative time. Because there is no result regarding to the postoperative long-term life quality, so it expects to be further proved by more high quality RCTs.