In the 18-year period from 1973 to 1991, 502 cases with gastric cancer were treated surgically at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital. A unified international classification for staging of gastric cancer had been applied to these patients in this study. The pathologic staging classification is based on the extent of the disease at the time of surgical exploration of the abdomen and/or histopathologic study of the excised surgical specimens. According to the new TNM staging classification, the 5-year cumulative survival rates of all surgically treated patients Ia, Ib, II, IIIa, IIIb and IV were 96.25%, 87.34%, 66.11%, 43.70%, 30.33% and 9.36% respectively. It was showed that there is a decreasing tendency in the 5-year survival rates for the depth of invasion of the gastric cancer. The histological types of the gastric cancer had the same prognostic significance as depth of invasion. The 5-year cumulative survival rate of patients with curative surgery was better in the group with chemotherapy (55.6%) than in that without chemotherapy (43%).