Objective To carry out a systematic evaluation for the diagnostic accuracy of Des-γ-carboxy-prothrombin(DCP) in primary hepatocellular cancer(PHC) by Meta-analysis.Methods The published international and domestic studies on DCP in the diagnosis of PHC were searched in multiple databases from its inception until December 2016.A total of seventeen studies were finally selected,among which 1 970 cases of PHC group and 2 588 cases of control group were included.The control group was composed of chronic hepatitis,cirrhosis,tumors in other systems and healthy subjects with physical examination.A meta-analysis was performed using Stata 12.0.Results The overall pooled results of the analysis and the 95％ confidence intervals were as follows:the sensitivity(SEN) was 0.79 (0.74 to 0.83),the specificity (SPE) was 0.90 (0.87 to 0.93),the positive likelihood ratio(PLR) was 8.1 (5.8 to 11.1),the negative likelihood ratio(NLR) was 0.24(0.19 to 0.29),the diagnostic odds ratio(DOR) was 34(21 to 55) and the area under the summary receiver operator characteristic curve (SROC) was 0.91 (0.89 to 0.93).The sensitivity combined the detections of AFP and DCP in the diagnosis of PHC was 0.90 with 0.94 of AUCROC and 56 of DOR.Conclusion The serum DCP may exhibit a relatively higher diagnostic specificity for PHC.The combined detections of AFP and DCP could improve the sensitivity and diagnostic accuracy.