The prognosis of 84 patients with advanced ovarian cancer who received the same regimen of postoperative chemotherapy but who received different surgical procedures, was evaluated retrospectively. Of those patients, 41 underwent cytoreductive surgery with lymphadenectomy, including removal of the para-aortic nodes (group A). The other 43 patients received hysterectomy, bilateral salpingoophorectomy and omentectomy (group B). Overall the patients in group A showed a significantly greater survival than those in group B. The performance of lymphadenectomy in patients with positive nodes improves the prognosis to equal that of patients with negative nodes. It is suggested that cytoreductive surgery with lymphadenectomy may be useful for the improvement of the prognosis of patients with advanced ovarian cancer.