AIM: To elucidate the influence of liver cirrhosis (LC) on the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer (GC). METHODS: Of the 1347 GC patients who underwent curative gastrectomy for GC between January 1984 and June 2007, 25 patients (21 men and 4 women with a median age of 67 years; range 54-77 years) with LC were enrolled in this study. Using the Child-Pugh classification, 15 patients were evaluated as grade A and 10 patients as grade B. No grade C patient underwent gastrectomy in this series. Clinical outcomes, including postoperative morbidity and survival, were retrospectively analyzed based on medical records and surgical files. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in operative blood loss and perioperative blood transfusion between the two groups. The most common postoperative complication was intractable ascites, which was the single postoperative morbidity noted more frequently in grade B patients (40.0%) than in grade A patients (6.7%) with statistical significance (P = 0.041). Operative mortality due to hepatic failure was seen in one grade A patient. Three patients had hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) at presentation and two patients developed HCC after surgery. Overall 5-year survival rate was 58.9% in patients with early GC and 33.3% in patients with advanced GC (P = 0.230). GC-specific 5-year survival rate of early GC patients was 90.0% while that of advanced GC patients was 58.3% (P = 0.010). Four patients with early GC died of uncontrolled HCC, of which two were synchronous and two metachronous. CONCLUSION: The risk of postoperative intractable ascites is high, particularly in grade B patients. Early detection and complete control of HCC is vital to improve a patient's prognosis.