Despite the incidence of gastric cancer is decreasing, it remains the fourth most common malignancy and the second leading cause of cancer-related death around the world. The prognosis of gastric cancer is still poor and surgery is the mainstay treatment. Lymph node dissection plays an important role in the surgery of gastric cancer due to the high incidence of lymph node metastasis and recurrence. There has been a consensus between the West and the East that D2 lymph node dissection is the standard dissection for advanced gastric cancer. Some clinical trials have showed good results of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced gastric cancer. Large sample randomized controlled studies are needed to confirm the value of neoadjuvant chemotherapy.