Objective To assess the efficacy and safety of Dan Hong injection for patients with angina pectoris compared with compound salvia injection as the control group. Methods Databases were electronically searched from MEDLINE, EMbase, CBM, CNKI, VIP, and Wanfang Data (January, 2007 to July, 2010), and reference lists of all papers identified were also checked. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of the effect of Dan Hong injection on angina pectoris were identified and assessed according to the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions and then RevMan 4.3 was used to undertake Meta analysis. Results Twenty-seven trials involving 3 030 patients were included. Meta-analysis showed that: a) Compared with compound salvia injection, Dan Hong injection was capable of significantly decreasing the angina incidence (OR=3.84, 95% CI 3.03 to 4.88, Plt;0.000 01); b) Dan Hong injection was capable of significantly improving ECG review effectiveness compared with compound salvia injection (OR=1.98, 95% CI 1.44 to 2.66, Plt;0.000 01); c) Dan Hong injection was obviously superior to compound salvia injection in improving the NST (WMD= 0.78, 95%CI 0.42 to 1.14, Plt;0.000 1) and ∑ST (WMD= 0.45, 95%CI 0.32 to 0.57, Plt;0.000 01); and d) Dan Hong injection was able to obviously improve the hemorheology index after angina pectoris; Meta-analyses of eight trials in which adverse events were reported showed that no significant difference was found between Dan Hong injection and salvia injection (OR=0.64, 95%CI 0.33 to 1.25, P=0.19). Conclusion Dan Hong injection can effectively improve the ST segment ischemia and hemorheology index after angina pectoris, significantly increase the effectiveness of electrocardiogram reviews and eventually significantly reduce the recurrence rate of angina, and appears to be much safer. Further high quality RCTs are required to provide reliable evidence on the treatment of patients with angina pectoris.