Objective To evaluate the influence of combined general and epidural anesthesia on the prognosis of patients undergoing cancer surgery. Methods Such database as PubMed, OVID, EBSCO, The Cochrane Library and CNKI were searched, and other relevant journals and references of the included literature were also hand searched from 1986 to 2011. Two evaluators independently screened the studies in accordance with the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted the data and assessed the methodology quality. RevMan 5.0 software was used for meta-analyses. Results Seven studies involving 2 513 patients were included. The results of meta-analyses showed that compared with the single general anesthesia, the combined general and epidural anesthesia had no significant differences in postoperative recurrence and metastasis rate (OR=0.71, 95%CI 0.44 to 1.17, P=0.18). Based on the following four factors i.e. category of cancer, time of follow-up, having preoperative metastais or not, and patients’ age, the sensitivity analysis showed significant differences in the postoperative recurrence and metastasis rate between the two anesthesia methods were found in the group of patients at or above 64 years old and the group with follow-up equal to or less than two years (OR=1.46, 95%CI 1.00 to 2.14, P=0.05; OR=1.55, 95%CI 1.06 to 2.26, P=0.02; respectively). Nevertheless, there was no significant difference in the groups of patients with colorectal cancer or without preoperative metastasis (OR=1.00, 95%CI 0.62-1.61, P=0.99; OR=1.26, 95%CI 0.86 to 1.86, P=0.23; respectively). Conclusion Compared with single general anesthesia, the combined general and epidural anesthesia cannot reduce the recurrence and metastasis rate for cancer patients, and has no marked improvement in prognosis of patients with colorectal cancer or without preoperative metastasis, but it obviously decreases the probability of forward recurrence and metastasis for the patients at or above 64 years old and the patients with follow-up equal to or less than two years.