AIM: To assess the feasibility of radial optic neurotomy (RON) in central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO) treatment with a Meta-analysis. METHODS: Electronic databases were searched for comprehensive articles that compared efficacy of RON with that of other treatments in CRVO. Study quality was assessed and risk ratio (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) with fix- or random-effects model were calculated according to the heterogeneity. RESULTS: A total of 200 eyes from 5 studies were included. The results indicated that no significant differences were found between groups with and without RON in improvement of visual acuity (VA) at 6mo follow-up (pooled RR 0.51, 95%CI 0.22 to 1.18, P=0.117) while improvement of VA showed significantly favourable in patients receiving RON treatment at 12mo follow-up (pooled RR 2.27, 95%CI 1.31 to 3.95, P=0.004). For complications, RON treatment was more effective in reducing neovascular glaucoma (pooled RR 0.45, 95%CI 0.21 to 0.97, P=0.042) but was comparable in retinal detachment (pooled RR 2.41, 95%CI 0.51 to 11.39, P=0.267) and vitreous hemorrhage (pooled RR 0.91, 95%CI 0.33 to 2.46, P=0.847). CONCLUSION: Compared with some certain treatment modalities, RON might offer better VA at 12mo and decrease the rate of neovascular glaucoma without changing the rate of retinal detachment and vitreous hemorrhage. Further studies are required considering the limitation of the research.