Abstract: Objective To systematically review the correlations between osteopontin (OPN) protein expression and different clinical pathological features of gastric cancer (GC). Methods The published studies were searched in the PubMed, Cochrane Library, CBM, etc. Relevant journals were also handsearched to identify all the relevant case-control studies. The quality of the included studies was assessed. The Cochrane Collaboration's software RevMan 5.30 was used to test the heterogeneity, overall effect and publication bias of the combined studies. Results A total of 17 studies including 1,965 patients were recruited. Compared with the non-cancerous gastric tissue group, OPN expression level was significantly higher in the GC. There was a significantly higher OPN expression rate in the lymph node positive group than in the lymph node negative group. OPN expression rate in the patients with distant metastasis was higher than that in the patients without distant metastasis. Furthermore, OPN expression increased with the increase in the invasive depth, progress degree, differentiation degree and TNM staging. Conclusions OPN can be served as an important reference index for early diagnosis of gastric cancer and evaluation of biological characteristics of GC.