Objective      To evaluate the efficiency of plasma exchange (PE) on patients with hyper-lipidemic pancreatitis.       Methods      Articles with key words of “plasma exchange or apheresis or pheresis or blood component removal or plasmapheresis” and “pancreatitis” were searched from Pubmed

Medline

Cochrane Library

Chinese Biomedicine Literature Database

CNKI and CQVIP Database from the time of their est

ablishment to August 2012. In addition

grey literatures about plasma exchange on patients with hyperlipidemic pancreatitis were manually searched. Two reviewers screened the literatures

then assessed the quality of each study and extracted data according the Cochrane Collaboration’s method independently. All data were analyzed by using the RevMan5.0 software．       Results      There were 11 trials meeting eligibility criteria

involving 414 cases. There were 198 cases of PE group and 216 cases of control group. Meta-analysis showed that PE significantly increased the overall cure rate (

RR

=1.48

95%

CI

=1.19 to 1.85

P

=0.000 5)

decreased the length of hospitalization and duration of fasting and abdominal pain， and the score acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE Ⅱ) after treatment. However

the difference in the overall mortality between PE group and control group was not statistically significant (

RR

=0.60

95%

CI

=0.29

1.24

P

=0.17).       Conclusion      Plasma exchange therapy is effective in hyperlipidemic pancreatitis than only routine medical treatment. But high-quality

multi-center

large-scale random control trials are required to identify the efficacy and safety of plasma exchange for hyperlipidemic pancreatitis.