In this review, we summarized the role, mechanism and clinical significance of SLFN11 in gastric cancer, esophageal cancer, small cell lung cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, Ewing’s sarcoma, glioblastoma, head and neck cancer, colorectal cancer, renal cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma and other cancers (Tables 1, 2). This evidence concerns the gene SLFN11 and cancer.