OBJECTIVE Angiopoietin-2(Ang-2) is an important factor that regulates tumor angiogenesis,which suggests the poor prognosis. The relationship between Ang-2 and head neck squamous cell carcinoma(HNSCC) remains uncleaar. This meta-analysis was to explore the association between expression of Ang-2 and HNSCC. METHODS Databases as PubMed,EMBASE,Cocharance Library,Chinese Biomedical Literature Database(CBM),China National Knowledge Infrastructure(CNKI),VIP and WangFang Data were electronically searched from the inception to April 2017 to collect case-control studies published about the association between Ang-2 expression and clinical pathogenic features in HNSCC. Two reviewers screened literatures,extracted data and assessed the methodological quality of included studies independently. RevMan 5.3 software was used to perform meta-analysis. RESULTS Eleven case-control studies with 639 HNSCC cases and 168 controls were included. According to our results,the expression of Ang-2 in HNSCC tissue was higher than in formal control(OR=6.68,95%CI:4.43-10.08). In additon,the Ang-2 expression was positively correlate with lymph node metastasis(OR=2.29,95%CI:1.50-3.48),and tumor stage(OR=0.42,95%CI:0.21-0.86), but seems to have no significant impact on tumor differentiation(OR=0.62,95%CI:0.28-1.40). CONCLUSIONS Current results demonstrate that Ang-2 could regulate the angiogenesis which may influence the occurrence,invasion and metastasis of HNSCC and may be corrected with tumor malignance. It may correlate with poor prognosis for patients with HNSCC. © 2017, Editorial Board of Chinese Journal of Cancer Prevention and Treatment. All right reserved.