Objective To systematically evaluate the diagnostic value of magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) in the investigation of bile duct anatomy of liver transplantation living donors.Methods A search in Cochrane library,MEDLINE,EMBASE,CBMdisc (China Biology Medicine disc) was performed to identify relevant English and Chinese-language abstracts,supplemented by Springer,OVID,Sciencedirect full text database,etc.Criteria for inclusion were based on validity criteria for diagnostic research published by the Cochrane collaboration.With Meta analysis package for Stata10.1,heterogeneity of the included articles was tested,which was used to select proper effect model to calculate pooled weighted sensitivity and specificity,positive likelihood ratio,negative likelihood ratio. Summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve was performed and the area under the curve (AUC) was calculated. Finally,sensitivity analysis was performed.Results Seventeen articles with 34 studies were included.Heterogeneity analysis revealed heterogeneity between studies and the source was MRCP imaging methods spotted by meta-regression analysis. Subgroup analysis according to MRCP imaging methods showed homogeneity within subgroups.The pooled sensitivity,specificity,positive likelihood ratio,negative likelihood ratio,diagnostic odd ratio of breath-holding thick slice MRCP,3D MRCP,the combination of the prior two methods,contrast enhance MRCP were 0.89,0.78,4.1,0.14,29; 0.92,0.80,4.5,0.10,45;0.95,0.82,5.2,0.06,85; and 1.00,0.76,4.1,0,1228,respectively with fixed effect model analysis.The area under the SROC curve was 0.83,0.92,0.96 and 0.99 respectively.Conclusion The combination of thick slice and 3D MRCP is a practical and effective method with good sensitivity and specificity to investigate bile duct anatomy of living liver transplantation donors,which fully meets the requirements of the preoperative assessment of bile duct structure.