Background: Left colic artery (LCA) preservation or non-preservation in radical resection for colorectal cancer is still under debate. This study aimed to compare the perioperative and oncological outcomes between the two procedures.Methods: Systematic search was performed in PubMed, Medline, Embase, Web of Science, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure databases for relevant randomized and non-randomized clinical trials published between 2011 and 2019. The primary endpoints were 5-year overall survival (OS), 5-year disease-free survival (DFS), total lymph nodes harvested, and anastomotic leakage. Secondary endpoints included the number of metastatic lymph nodes, intraoperative blood loss, urinary dysfunction, bowel obstruction, and operation time. Results: Twenty-eight studies with 10545 patients (LCA non-preservation surgery, 4920; LCA preservation surgery, 5625) were included. Data of 7142 rectal cancer patients (LCA non-preservation surgery, 3468; LCA preservation surgery, 3674) were extracted for subgroup analysis. There was significantly lower incidence of anastomotic leakage (odds ratio=1.21; 95% confidence interval |1.04, 1.41|; P=0.015) in colorectal cancer patients with LCA preservation. When rectal cancer was independently analyzed, no significant difference was found in anastomotic leakage between the groups. There were significantly more metastatic lymph nodes and significantly shorter operation time in colorectal cancer and rectal cancer patients with LCA non-preservation. No significant difference was found regarding 5-year OS, 5-year DFS, total lymph nodes harvested, intraoperative blood loss, urinary dysfunction, and bowel obstruction for colorectal and rectal cancer.Conclusions: LCA non-preservation was not proved to increase anastomotic leakage in rectal cancer surgery and was associated with more harvested metastatic lymph nodes and shorter operation time. Trial registration: A review protocol was registered on PROSPERO (registration number: CRD42020183906) and http://www.researchregistry.com (registration number: reviewregistry841).