ObjectiveTo systematically review the effect of early moxibustion therapy on the recovery of gastrointestinal functioning after gastrointestinal surgery. MethodsWe searched The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, PubMed, EMbase, Ovid, EBSCO, CBM, CNKI, VIP and WanFang Data from inception to Jan. 2015, to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-RCTs about early moxibustion therapy on the recovery of gastrointestinal functioning. Two reviewer independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Then, meta-analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.3 and Stata 12.0 softwares. ResultsA total of nine RCTs and four quasi-RCTs involving 1444 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis indicated that, the early moxibustion therapy group was significantly superior to the control group in total effective rate (OR=1.26, 95%CI 1.17 to 1.36, P<0.00001), the time to first bowel motion (MD=-11.79, 95%CI -13.79 to -9.78, P<0.00001), the time to first flatus (MD=-15.13, 95%CI -17.40 to -12.85, P<0.00001) and the time to first passage of feces (MD=-34.93, 95%CI -59.33 to -10.53, P=0.005). ConclusionCurrent evidence shows that early moxibustion therapy after gastrointestinal surgery is beneficial for promoting the recovery of gastrointestinal functioning. In addition, due to the low methodological quality of included studies, larger sample, high-quality RCTs are needed to prove the above conclusion.