Radioisotopes (RI) and blue dye (BD) are routinely used markers for staining during sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) in breast cancer. Compared with traditional tracers, tracer performance of indocyanine green (ICG) has been controversial. A total of 21 studies were selected from the PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane Library databases. Detection ability was judged based on four endpoints: i) The identification rate (IR) of the patients; ii) the IR of the sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs); iii) the IR of the positive SLNs; and iv) the false negative rate (FNR). Compared with BD, ICG was superior in terms of the IR of the patients [odds ratio (OR)=7.17; 95% CI, 3.98-12.94), the IR of the SLNs (OR=8.84; 95% CI, 6.71-11.66) and FNR (OR=0.20; 95% CI, 0.08-0.48) using a fixed-effects model. There was a significant difference in both the IR of the positive SLNs (OR=21.32; 95% CI, 2.84-160.14) and FNR (OR=0.46; 95% CI, 0.23-0.91) in the ICG vs. RI group. Furthermore, when using ICG at the recommended dose, a significant difference was found in the IR of the patients (OR=1.77; 95% CI, 1.09-2.85) and the IR of the SLNs (OR=21.62; 95% CI, 5.23-89.43) using a fixed-effects model. In the ICG vs. BD combined with RI group, there were no differences in either the IR of the patients (OR=5.10; 95% CI, 0.24-107.48) or the IR of SLNs (OR=5.10; 95% CI, 0.60-256.66). In conclusion, ICG was a better tracer compared with BD or RI alone and was not a worse tracer compared with BD combined with RI. The use of the recommended dose of ICG had an improved tracer effect. ICG is expected to be widely used in SLNB in view of its clinical advantages.