Objective To assess the different efficacy of massage therapy versus western medication for infantile diarrhea.Methods All randomized controlled trials（RCT s） of massage therapy for infantile diarrhea were searched from China Biomedical Literature Database on Disc（CBMdisc

1978 to 2011）

China National Knowledge Internet（CNKI

1979 to 2011）

VIP database（1989 to 2011）

Cochrane Library（Issue 10

2011）

PubMed（1966 to 2011） and EMbase（1986 to 2011）.Data were extracted and evaluated by two reviewers independently with a specially designed extraction form.Cochrane Handbook for systematic reviews 5.0.1 was taken as a reference to quality evaluation of the included studies and the Cochrane Collaboration’s RevMan 5.1 software was used for data analysis.Results A total of 15 RCT s were included.The meta-analysis showed the efficacy of massage was superior to that of intestinal mucosa protector

microecological preparation

or the combo therapy.It also showed the efficacy of massage was superior to that of western medication for different subtypes of infantile diarrhea such as rotavirus enteritis and antibiotic-associated diarrhea.No adverse effect was reported in all the trials.Conclusion The efficacy of massage is superior to that of western medication for infantile diarrhea.However

the exact effect needs to be confirmed in well-designed and large-sampled clinical trials.