Abstract: [Objective] To systematically evaluate the clinical efficacy of surgical versus non-surgical treatment of Rockwood type III acromioclavicular dislocation. [Methods] The literatures regarding comparison of surgical versus non-surgical treatment of Rockwood type III acromioclavicular dislocation were searched from the databases, including Cochrane Library, PubMed, Web of science, EMBASE, CNKI database, Wanfang database and China Biomedical Database until June 2022, and then a meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.2 software. [Results] A total of 17 articles involving 1 006 patients were included. As results of meta-analysis, the surgical group was significantly greater than the non-surgical group in terms of incidence of acromioclavicular arthritis (OR=6.01, 95%CI 2.16~16.68, P=0.0006), infection (OR=5.92, 95%CI 1.35~22.91, P=0.02) and ectopic ossification (OR=1.98, 95%CI 1.18~3.32, P=0.009), while the nonsurgical group was significantly better than the surgical group in terms of functional excellence rate (OR=1.75, 95% CI 1.19~2.58) and Constant score (WMD=1.79, 95%CI 1.14~2.43, P<0.05). However, there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of incidence of complications (OR=1.73, 95%CI 0.65~4.63, P=0.27), shoulder pain (OR=1.23, 95%CI 0.61~2.47, P=0.57) and lateral clavicular osteolysis (OR=1.31, 95%CI 0.39~4.38, P=0.66). [Conclusion] There is no difference between surgical treatment and non-surgical treatment in terms of complications, pain and osteolysis of acromioclavicular joint, but non-surgical treatment has obvious advantages over the surgical treatment in terms of infection, acromioclavicular arthritis, ectopic ossification, outcome function and constant score.