Objective:To investigate the value of serum anti-PLA2 R as a diagnostic marker of idiopathic membranous nephropathy( IMN).Methods:All available articles about serum anti-PLA2 R as a marker of IMN which were published at home and abroad from 2009.1 to 2013.12 were pooled from the databases of PubMed,Elsevier,Springer,CNKI,VIP and Wanfang database et al. The quality of the papers were evaluated by the quality assessment for studies of diagnostic accuracy studies( QUADAS).And then a meta-analysis was conducted by the statistical softwares of Meta-Disc and Stata.The diagnostic value of serum anti-PLA2 R in IMN was evaluated by the statistical indicators of pooled sensitivity, pooled specificity, pooled likelihood ratio and summary receiver operating characteristic curve( ROC curve).Sensitivity analysis was performed by reducing a paper in order,and publication bias was tested by Egger funnel plot.Results: Seven articles were selected to the meta-analysis according to the inclusion criteria and 967 cases were included in the study ( 454 IMN patients and 513 controls ).Heterogeneity test showed no heterogeneity threshold effect ( Spearman correlation coefficient was 0.107,P=0.819),but there was heterogeneity caused by non threshold effects(Cochrane-Q was 16.89,P=0.009 7).So random model was used to pool the effect size.The overall combined effect sizes:sensitivity was 69%,95%CI:0.65-0.73;specificity:98%,95%CI:0.96-0.99;pooled positive likelihood ratio 16.37,95%CI:4.06-65.95;pooled negative likelihood ratio 0.32,95%CI:0.24-0.43;AUC of SROC:0.854 0,Q*=0.785 0.Sensitivity analysis showed that this research was stable and reliable and Egger funnel plot showed little publication bias.Conclusion: Serum anti-PLA2 R is an useful biomarker to the diagnosis of IMN.