Recently, many studies have been conducted to explore prognostic value of platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) for patients with lung cancer, while the results remain controversial. We collected pretreatment, clinicopathological and follow-up data of 1388 lung cancer patients receiving surgery between 2006 and 2011 in our hospital, and reviewed relevant articles from Embase, Pubmed, Web of science databases, then performed a meta-analysis to clarify the relationship between PLR and prognosis of lung cancer patients. Finally, 11 articles with our study were included, results indicated elevated PLR was negatively related to overall survival (HR = 1.33, 95% CI: 1.10-1.62), but not related to progress-free survival (HR = 1.21, 95% CI: 0.97-1.49). Subgroup analysis suggested high PLR was correlated with poor survival in non-small cell lung cancer (HR = 1.43, 95% CI: 1.14-1.78), but not in small cell lung cancer (HR = 1.10, 95% CI: 0.76-1.58). Besides, for patients treated by chemotherapy or radiotherapy (HR = 1.66, 95% CI: 1.15-2.38) and patients in late stage (HR = 1.41, 95% CI: 1.19-1.68), PLR had significantly prognostic value. Additionally, the result was significant for patients when cut-off value of PLR was between 150 and 200 (HR = 1.47, 95% CI: 1.18-1.82). In Conclusion, this meta-analysis revealed that elevated PLR was associated with poor prognosis in lung cancer.