Abstract: Objective To investigate the relationship between the immunohistochemical types and the pathological types of pancreatic intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMN). Methods Literatures on the diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic IPMN published before June 30, 2011 in the PubMed database were retrieved. The literatures adopted were scored by the case reports quality assessment list. The correlation analysis between the immunohistochemical types and the gender, pathological types, characteristics of benign or malignant tumor and morphological types were analyzed. All data were analyzed using the Pearson chisquare test or multiple regression analysis. Results Thirteen literatures were adopted, the scores were 3145 (full mark: 50), and the mean score was 37. The clinical data of 826 pancreatic IPMN patients who were comfirmed by pathological examination were collected, and there were 4 immunohistochemical types: (1) The gastric type (363 patients). Of the 271 patients who underwent gender analysis, there were 195 males and 76 females, with the median age of 65.6 years. Of 225 patients who underwent pathological types analysis, there were 146 cases of adenoma, 34 cases of borderline tumor, 24 cases of carcinoma in situ, 21 cases of invasive carcinoma, the benign tumor was accounted for 86.68%(293/338). Of the 215 patients who underwent morphological type analysis, there were 34 cases of main pancreatic duct type, 151 cases of branch duct type and 30 cases of mixed type. (2) The intestinal type (327 patients). Of the 269 patients who underwent gender analysis, there were 184 males and 85 females, with the median age of 64.5 years. Of the 262 patients who underwent pathological types analysis, there were 28 cases of adenoma, 43 cases of borderline tumor, 91 cases of carcinoma in situ, 100 cases of invasive carcinoma, the benign tumor was accounted for 29.21%(85/291). Of the 151 patients who underwent morphological type analysis, there were 63 cases of main pancreatic duct type, 54 cases of branch duct type and 34 cases of mixed type. (3) The pancreatobiliary type (92 patients). Of the 78 patients who underwent gender analysis, there were 41 males and 37 females, with the median age of 69.2 years. Of the 81 patients who underwent pathological types analysis, there were 4 cases of adenoma, 1 case of borderline tumor, 21 cases of carcinoma in situ, 55 cases of invasive carcinoma, the benign tumor was accounted for 5.75%(5/87). Of the 34 patients who underwent morphological type analysis, there were 7 cases of main pancreatic duct type, 18 cases of branch duct type and 9 cases of mixed type. (4) The oncocytic type (44 patients). Of the 37 patients who underwent gender analysis, there were 24 males and 13 females, with the median age of 60.3 years. Of the 33 patients who underwent pathological types analysis, there were 18 cases of carcinoma in situ, 15 cases of invasive carcinoma, and all of them were with malignant tumors. Of the 36 patients who underwent morphological type analysis, there were 9 cases of main pancreatic duct type, 16 cases of branch duct type and 11 cases of mixed type. The immunohistochemical type of pancreatic IPMN was correlated with gender, pathological type and characteristics of maglignant or benign tumors (χ2=10.626, 281.839, 333.212, r=0.097, 0.569, 0.625, P<0.05). The result of the chisquare test between the immunohistochemical types and the morphological types was statistically significant (χ2=50.732, P<0.05), but there was no correlation between them (r=0.010, P>0.05). Conclusion The immunohistochemical type of pancreatic IPMN is correlated with gender, pathological type and the characteristics of maglignant or benign tumors, which provide references for the diagnosis and prognosis evaluation of pancreatic IPMN.