A prognostic study was done in 736 patients with primary resectable adenocarcinoma of the gastric cardia whose postoperative survival time was longer than three months. The 3-, 5-, and 10-year cumulative survival rate was 32.2%, 20.2% and 12.2%, respectively. Thirty individual variables were evaluated statistically using the cumulative survival rate by the computer's COX multivariate analysis model. The results showed that the most important prognostic variables for predicting overall survival included maximal tumor diameter, type of resection, depth of invasion and paracardial lymph node metastasis. Sex and preoperative radiotherapy did not influence prognosis.