Abstract: Objective To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of serum from lung cancer patients in detection of epidermal growth factor receptor mutation. Methods Literatures on detecting epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation in serum and tissue from patients with lung cancer were collected for meta-analysis and SROC curve. Results Nine literatures including 555 cases were involved. Meta-analyses showed that sensitivity, specifi city, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio of detecting EGFR mutation in serum compared with tissue were 0.65, 0.92, 7.85 and 0.37 respectively and the area under the SROC curve (AUC) was 0.94. Conclusion The detection of EGFR mutation is highly consistent in tissues and plasma DNA samples from lung cancer patients. The detection in plasma may serve as a feasible screening method for detecting EGFR mutations.