Abstract: Developing simple and sensitive detection methods is of great significance to researches on medical diagnosis, environmental analysis and food safety. As a new biological indicator molecule, aptamers are combined with hybridization chain reaction (HCR) to form a new detection model for sensitive detection of analytes. HCR is a typical amplification technology, which can be carried out without enzyme and self-assembled at room temperature. The aptamer-based HCR technology has be attracted great interest due to its high specificity and sensitivity, simple protocol and low cost. The study reviews basic features of HCR with an emphasis on the application of aptamer-based HCR in detection, such as proteins, enzyme activities, small molecules and tumor cells. Major existing problems of the technology are also discussed. The review is aimed to provide a theoretical reference for establishing a highly efficient and sensitive HCR detection system.