Background: Systematic reviews have become increasingly popular in health care and have been produced in large numbers (a current annual publication rate of about 2,500 in English). But the cost-effectiveness of systematic review is unknown. Objective: To investigate the cost, especially time and money, of conducting a systematic review and analyse the citation of systematic reviews. Methods: Four databases including MEDLINE, EMBASE, CBM and The Cochrane Library (Issue 4, 2008) were searched. The search terms ‘systematic review’ and ‘meta analysis’ (MeSH or EMTREE) retrieved 5,433 systematic reviews published in 2008. 543 systematic reviews were randomly selected and correlative data were collected from the authors of these systematic reviews through emails. Results: The data are under analysis and the main results will be reported for the following aspects: i) time and money to conduct a systematic review; ii) the average times a systematic review is cited; iii) the differences in cost-effectiveness analysis between Cochrane and non-Cochrane systematic reviews; iv) the differences in cost-effectiveness analysis on different areas; and v) the differences in cost-effectiveness analysis among different languages. Conclusion: When a researcher prepares to do a systematic review, knowledge of the time and money involved would be useful both for grant proposals and for realistic planning. It is estimated that systematic reviews can become out of date within about three to five years, and sometimes sooner. If some kind of systematic reviews are rarely used, we should be more cautious before conducting a systematic review.