ObjectiveTo systematically review the risk factors leading to postoperative persistence of children diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) after adenoidectomy and tonsillectomy. MethodsPubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library, ClinicalTrials.gov, CNKI, VIP, WanFang Data and SinoMed databases were electronically searched to collect case-control studies and cohort studies related to risk factors for postoperative persistence of OSA in children from inception to July 2019. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data, and evaluated the risk of bias of the included studies. Meta-analysis was then performed using RevMan 5.3 software. ResultsA total of 12 cohort studies involving 1 659 OSA patients were included. Meta-analysis results showed that the risk of postoperative persistence of OSA in children with preoperative obesity was 3.47 times higher than that in non-obese children (RR=3.47, 95%CI 2.04 to 5.92, P<0.000 01). Compared with normal-weight children, obese children had 4.11 times higher risk of postoperative residual OSA (RR=4.11, 95%CI 1.68 to 10.07, P<0.000 01).ConclusionsPreoperative obesity is a risk factor for postoperative persistence of OSA in children. Due to the limited quantity and quality of included studies, more high-quality studies are needed to verity the above conclusions.