The purpose of this work was to study postoperative mortality and morbidity with respect to preoperative prognostic factors in 67 patients with alcoholic or posthepatitis cirrhosis. Surgical procedures involved the biliary tract (n = 20), stomach (n = 16), colon or rectum (n = 12), and hernia (n = 7). Thirteen preoperative clinical and biological variables were subjected to mono- and multivariate statistical analysis. The mortality rate was 23 p. 100. There was no statistical difference between the three main surgical procedures. No patients died after herniorrhaphy. The rate of morbidity was 37 p. 100. The most common complications were sepsis, organ failure, and ascites. Three preoperative variables were found to be different between survivors and non survivors: ascites, prothrombin time and the Child-Pugh score. Multidimensional analysis demonstrated that the only variable to have an independent unfavorable prognostic value was albuminemia. These results suggest that postoperative mortality following extrahepatic abdominal surgery in cirrhotic patients is: 1) especially high after digestive procedures, 2) increased by ascites, low prothrombin time and high Child-Pugh score. Only hypoalbuminemia had a significant independent explanatory value regarding prognosis.