Abstract: Along with the changes in lifestyle and eating habits, digestive system tumors have become a major cause of cancer-related deaths. Due to the non-specific clinical symptoms, most patients have been complicated with distant metastases when the lesions are detected. It is urgent to unravel the mechanism underlying early tumor metastasis. Discoidin domain receptor 1 （DDR1） is a novel type of receptor tyrosine kinase, which is abnormally expressed in multiple types of tumors. It is involved in tumor progression through multiple mechanisms, such as cell proliferation, epithelial mesenchymal transformation, migration and invasion, etc. This article reviewed the role and mechanism of DDR1 in digestive system tumors, aiming to provide novel ideas for the diagnosis and treatment of this disease.