Objective To investigate the incidence of postoperative complication and the effect of drainage and jaundice reduction of several preoperative bile drainage methods for hilar cholangiocarcinoma

so as to provide a reference for clinical decision-making.Methods The literature on preoperative biliary drainage in patients with hilar cholangiocarcinoma from January 2007 to June 2018 in the databases CNKI

VIP

PubMed and EMbase was collected.The quality of the literature was analyzed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale（NOS）

and the meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3 software.Results A total of 11 articles were included in this study.The results of the meta-analysis showed that the incidence of postoperative cholangitis was higher in patients undergoing endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography（ERCP）than in patients undergoing percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage（PTBD）（RR=0.64;95% CI:0.42-0.98;P=0.040 0）;PTBD also had better effect of drainage and jaundice reduction（RR=2.12;95% CI:1.41-3.20;P=0.000 3）;the incidence of postoperative pancreatitis was higher in patients undergoing ERCP than in patients undergoing PTBD（RR=0.29;95% CI:0.15-0.57;P=0.000 3）;differences in postoperative bleeding between patients undergoing PTBD and ERCP was insignificant（RR=1.24;95%CI:0.62-2.46;P=0.540 0）.There was no significant difference in the incidence of postoperative cholangitis between patients undergoing endoscopic nasobiliary drainage（ENBD）and endoscopic biliary stenting（EBS）（RR=0.51;95% CI:0.25-1.04;P=0.060 0）

and there was no significant difference in the incidence of postoperative pancreatitis between patients undergoing ENBD and EBS（RR=0.62;95% CI:0.29-1.32;P=0.210 0）.Conclusion For patients with hepatic hilar cholangiocarcinoma who have a clear diagnosis and need bile drainage

PTBD can be recommended.Compared with ERCP

PTBD not only has a higher rate of improvement of cholestasis

but also lower incidence of postoperative biliary infection and pancreatitis.Therefore

it is the preferred method for preoperative bile drainage and jaundice reduction.