Gastric cancer is the most frequent tumor of the digestive tract in Mexico. Most patients are diagnosed at advanced stages, and fatal outcome is expected. One hundred fifty patient charts were retrospectively reviewed. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to evaluate the impact of clinicopathologic and treatment variables on survival. Most patients (75%) were at advanced stages, harboring poorly differentiated tumors. Surgery, mostly palliative, was performed on 114 patients. Chemotherapy was administered to 47 patients. On univariate analysis, significant prognostic factors were TNM stage, chemotherapy, surgical attempt, performance status, histology, and tumor site (p < 0.001). On multivariate analysis, independent prognostic factors were TNM stage, histology, tumor site, surgical attempt, and chemotherapy (p < 0.01). Median survival for patients with palliative or adjuvant chemotherapy was 11.4 and 10.4 months, respectively, compared with +/- 3 months for patients with no chemotherapy (p < 0.03). Nonsurgical patients receiving chemotherapy survived 5.4 months versus 1.1 months for those without chemotherapy. The favorable influence of chemotherapy persisted after a stratified analysis of subgroups eliminating potential biases. We identified prognostic factors for survival. Chemotherapy should be considered even for advanced-stage patients with either adjuvant or palliative attempts, because we consistently found a favorable impact on the median survival time. However, phase III prospective randomized trials are awaited.