ObjectiveTo systematically review the efficacy and safety of prophylactic use of intra-aortic balloon pump counterpulsation (IABP) before coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in high risk patients. MethodsDatabases including The Cochrane Library (Issue 2, 2014), PubMed, EMbase, CBM, CNKI, WanFang Data and VIP were electronically searched from inception to July 2014, to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and cohort studies about prophylactic use of IABP before CABG in high risk patients. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Then, meta-analysis was performed by using RevMan 5.2 software. ResultsA total of 6 RCTs and 6 cohort studies involving 1 359 patients were included, of which 633 prophylactically used IABP before CABG (the IABP group) and 736 didn't prophylactically use IABP before CABG (the control group). The results of meta-analysis showed that: compared with the control group, prophylactic use of IABP could significantly reduce perioperative mortality (RCT: OR=0.15, 95%CI 0.06 to 0.38, P<0.000 1; cohort study: OR=0.36, 95%CI 0.19 to 0.67, P=0.001) and postoperative LCOS (RCT: OR=0.23, 95%CI 0.12 to 0.43, P<0.000 01; cohort study: OR=0.21, 95%CI 0.10 to 0.43, P<0.000 1); there was no significant difference between two groups in incidence rate of postoperative myocardial infarction (MI) (RCT: OR=0.34, 95%CI 0.10 to 1.11, P=0.07; cohort study: OR=0.56, 95%CI 0.26 to 1.24, P=0.15); the results of combined analyses of RCTs showed that, prophylactic use of IABP could significantly reduce postoperative ICU stay (MD=-42.94, 95%CI -56.11 to -29.76, P<0.000 01) and postoperative hospital stay (MD=-3.83, 95%CI-5.82 to -1.85, P=0.0002), but these differences were not found in the results of combined analyses of cohort studies (MD=-4.68, 95%CI 20.69 to 11.33, P=0.57; MD=-0.77, 95%CI -1.80 to 0.26, P=0.14). ConclusionProphylactic use of IABP before CABG in high risk patients can significantly reduce the perioperative mortality, postoperative LCOS and the length of ICU stay, however it cannot reduce postoperative MI. Due to the limited quantity and quality of included studies, the above conclusions still need to be verified by more high quality studies.