Objective: To evaluate whether prophylactic central neck dissection (pCND) can decrease the local recurrence rate of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) after thyroidectomy. Methods: The publicly available literature published from January 2001 to December 2012 concerning total thyroidectomy plus pCND versus total thyroidectomy alone for PTC was retrieved by searching the national and international online databases. Meta-analysis was performed after the data extraction process. Results: Ten studies were finally included with a total of 2 272 patients, of whom, 897 cases underwent total thyroidectomy plus pCND and 1 375 cases received total thyroidectomy only. As shown by the Meta-analysis results, no significant improvements were seen in total thyroidectomy plus pCND compared with thyroidectomy alone group in respects to the overall recurrence rate (OR=0.73, 95% CI=0.49?1.07, P=0.11), and recurrence rates in the central (OR=0.92, 95% CI=0.33?2.51, P=0.86) and lateral neck (OR=1.00, 95% CI=0.50?2.00, P=0.99). Conclusion: For patients with clinically node negative (cN0) PTC, pCND cannot reduce the postoperative recurrence rate.