ObjectiveTo systematically evaluate the potential value of C-reactive protein to albumin ratio (CAR) as an indicator of prognosis and survival in patients with pancreatic cancer. MethodsThe literatures were searched comprehensively in the PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, CBM, Wanfang, CNKI, and CQVIP databases from the establishment of the databases to May 20, 2021. The combined hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (95%CI) were used to evaluate the correlation between the CAR and the overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), or disease-free survival (DFS) in the patients with pancreatic cancer. The Newcastle-Ottawa scale (NOS) was used to evaluate the quality of the non-randomized controlled studies, and the Stata SE 15.0 software was used for meta-analysis. ResultsA total of 2 985 patients with pancreatic cancer were included in this meta-analysis of 15 studies. The results of meta-analysis showed that the higher CAR value, the shorter OS [effect size (ES)=0.60, 95%CI (0.50, 0.69), Z=12.04, P<0.001], DFS [ES=0.63, 95%CI (0.47, 0.78), Z=3.61, P<0.001], and PFS [ES=0.41, 95%CI (0.19, 0.63), Z=7.91, P<0.001] in the patients with pancreatic cancer. The results of subgroup analysis of OS according to different countries, sample size, mean age, follow-up time, CAR cut-off value, and NOS score showed that the higher CAR value was related to the shorter OS (P<0.05). The result of linear regression analysis showed that there was no correlation between the CAR cut-off value and lnHR of OS (r2=0.947, P=0.455). Conclusion From results of this study, CAR is closely related to OS of patients, and it is expected to be used as a new reference index for monitoring and judging prognosis of patients with pancreatic cancer.