ObjectiveTo systematically review the effectiveness and safety of salvianolate injection and Danshen injection for patients with angina pectoris, and evaluate the cost of drug. MethodsWe electronically searched databases including PubMed, CENTRAL (Issue 4, 2013), CNKI, VIP and WanFang Data (2004.1 to 2013.5) for the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the comparison between salvianolate injection and Danshen injection for angina pectoris from January 2004 to May 2013. Relevant journals and conference proceedings were also manually retrieved. Two reviewers independently screened literature in accordance with the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted the data and assess the methodological quality of included studies. Then, meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.2 software. ResultsA total of 10 RCTs involving 1 196 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that, salvianolate injection was obviously superior to Danshen injection in the effectiveness (OR=3.79, 95%CI 2.78 to 5.17, P < 0.000 01) and safety (OR=0.24, 95%CI 0.09 to 0.64, P=0.004), but lack of economic advantages in the treatment of the angina pectoris diseases. ConclusionCurrent evidence indicates that, salvianolate injection is a safe and effective scheme for angina pectoris, and Danshen injection is considered as a economic method. Because of the limited quantity and quality of currently-available research, the aforementioned conclusion should be verified by strictly-designed and large-scale sample RCTs.