This study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of early application of 
citicoline in the treatment of patients with acute stroke by meta-analysis. 
Randomized controlled trials published until May 2015 were electronically 
searched in MEDLINE, Embase, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, 
WHO International Clinical Trial Registration Platform, Clinical Trial.gov, and 
China Biology Medicine disc. Two reviewers independently screened the articles 
and extracted the data based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The 
quality of included articles was evaluated by using Revman5.0, and meta-analysis 
was performed. The results showed that 1027 articles were obtained in initial 
retrieval, and finally 7 articles, involving a total of 4039 cases, were 
included for analysis. The meta-analysis showed that no significant differences 
were found in the long-term mortality (OR=0.91, 95% CI 0.07 to 1.09, P=0.30), 
the rate of dependency (OR=1.02, 95% CI 0.87 to 1.24, P=0.85), and the effective 
rate (OR=0.98, 95% CI 0.84 to 1.14, P=0.82) between citicoline group and control 
group. The overall rate of adverse events in citicoline group was not 
significantly different from that in control group (P=0.30). The quality of 
included articles reached moderate-low level. In conclusion, citicolne cannot 
reduce long-term mortality and dependence rate in the treatment of acute stroke, 
and the effective rate of citivoline may be not better than that of controls but 
with reliable safety.