Xiaowan Chen,1,* Junhua Zhao,1,* Ailin Li,1,2 Peng Gao,1 Jingxu Sun,1 Yongxi Song,1 Jingjing Liu,1 Ping Chen,1 Zhenning Wang11Department of Surgical Oncology and General Surgery, 2Department of Radiation Oncology, First Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workBackground: The prognostic significance of claudin 4 (CLDN4) in patients with gastric cancer (GC) is controversial. This meta-analysis aims to assess the correlation between CLDN4 expression and clinicopathological characteristics and assess the prognostic significance of CLDN4 in GC.Methods: We searched the PubMed and Embase databases. We performed the meta-analysis with odds ratio (OR), hazard ratio (HR), and 95% confidence interval (CI) as effect values.Results: Fourteen studies containing 2,106 patients with GC were analyzed. The overall analysis showed that CLDN4 expression was associated with increasing pT category, tumor size, and lymph node metastasis in patients with GC (pT3–T4 vs pT1–T2: OR =1.56, 95% CI =1.13–2.16; P