ObjectiveTo systematically review the prognostic value of E-cadherin expression in stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). MethodsDatabases including PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library (Issue 1, 2015), CNKI, CBM and WanFang Data were searched to collect cohort studies about the prognostic value of E-cadherin expression in stage I NSCLC from inception to Jun. 2015. 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 9 cohort studies, involving 1028 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that, the lower E-cadherin expression group had a lower overall survival rate than that of the higher E-cadherin expression group (HR=1.74, 95%CI 1.36 to 2.24, P＜0.00001). However, there was no significant difference between two groups in disease free survival (HR=2.08, 95%CI 0.8 to 5.40, P=0.13). Subgroup analysis showed that, the lower E-cadherin expression group had a worse overall survival when groups were divided by different cut-off values, E-cadherin location site or different nations (all value P＜0.05). ConclusionCurrent evidence shows that, reduced E-cadherin expression could predict poor prognostic outcome in patients with stage I NSCLC. Due to the limited quantity and quality of included studies, the above conclusions need to be verified by more high quality studies.