ObjectiveTo evaluate the values of diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) sequence in the diagnosis of node metastases in breast cancer by meta-analysis. MethodsThe articles concerning the diagnosis of node metastases by using DWI until September 2016 were searched in databases including The Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMbase, Web of Science, CBM, VIP, WanFang Data and CNKI. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias of included studies by using the QUADAS-2 (Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2) tool. Then, meta-analysis was performed by using Stata 12.0 software. The pooled weighted sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) were calculated, the summary receiver operating characteristic curve (SROC) was drawn and the area under the curve was calculated. ResultsA total of 21 articles were included, involving 25 studies. The results of meta-analysis showed that, the pooled sensitivity, specificity, DOR and area under SROC curve of DWI for diagnosing node metastases were 0.85 (95%CI 0.80 to 0.89), 0.83 (95%CI 0.78 to 0.87), 4.99 (95%CI 3.74 to 6.67), 0.18 (95%CI 0.13 to 0.24), 3.32 (95%CI 2.82 to 3.82), and 0.91 (95%CI 0.88 to 0.93), respectively. The results of subgroup analysis showed that DWI had better Spe in b value=750-1 000 than b value=400-600; The 1.5T DWI had better Sen and Spe in diagnosing node metastases compared with 1.5T DWI. ConclusionDWI has more diagnostic efficiency for assessing lymph node metastases, especially in b value=750-1 000 and 1.5T field MR syetem. Due to limited quantity and quality of the included studies, more high-quality studies are required to verify the above conclusion.