ObjectiveTo systematically review the efficacy and safety of robotic-assisted thoracic surgery (RATS) and video assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). MethodsWe searched PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library (Issue 9, 2016), Web of Science, CNKI, VIP, WanFang Data and CBM databases to collect clinical studies about RATS vs. VATS for patients with NSCLC from inception to October 2016. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies, then meta-analysis was performed by using RevMan 5.3 software.ResultsA total of 14 cohort studies involving 19 921 patients were included; among them, 4 322 cases were in the RATS group, and 15 599 were in the VATS group. The results of meta-analysis showed that the operation time (MD=22.90, 95%CI 9.97 to 35.84, P<0.000 5) was longer in the RATS group than the VATS group. However, the conversion rate (OR=0.72, 95%CI 0.44 to 1.18, P=0.20), the incidence of postoperative complications (OR=1.06, 95%CI 0.96 to 1.17, P=0.28), intraoperative blood loss (MD=2.75, 95%CI –8.39 to 13.89, P=0.63), postoperative hospitalization time (MD=–0.00, 95%CI –0.02 to 0.02, P=0.99) and in-hospital mortality rate (OR=0.60, 95%CI 0.35 to 1.05, P=0.07) were not significant differences between both groups.ConclusionThe current meta-analysis indicates that the efficacy and safety of RATS and VATS for NSCLC is equivalence, however the operation time for RATS is longer. Due to the limited quantity and quality of inclued studies, the above conclusions still need to be verified by more high quality studies.