A total of 6,457 autopsy protocols were reviewed to identify 70 women who died of ovarian cancer. 1. Epithelial tumors were the most common tumor (74%). Twenty% were germ cell tumors. There were two cases each of sarcoma and stromal cell tumors. 2. The patients with germ cell tumors were younger than those with epithelial tumors. The duration of the epithelial tumor disease was longer than that of germ cell tumor. 3. The most common mechanism of death was carcinomatosis (69%). Eight of 70 patients (11%) had respiratory failure. One case of subacute cor pulmonale was due to tumor embolization. One case had a rupture of the portal vein. 4. The peritoneum was most frequently involved in every tumor (87%). The liver was the second most frequent site (73%). Other frequent metastatic sites included the lungs (44%), and spleen (47%). Lymph nodes including the paraaortic, pelvic and mesenteric were also very frequent metastatic sites. 5. CDDP containing regimens were used in 33 cases (47%). FAMT regimen was the second most common treatment (15.7%). Another common treatment is whole abdominal radiotherapy (14%). The patients treated with the CDDP containing regimen had a significantly longer survival time (23.4 months) than those treated with FAMT (19.2 months) and others (13.6 months). 6. For metastasis to the lungs, spleen and mesenteric lymph nodes the patients treated with the CDDP containing regimen were more numerous than those treated without CDDP. For metastasis to the kidneys, the patients treated without CDDP were more numerous than those treated with CDDP containing regimens.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)