Fifty-one patients treated for an epithelial ovarian carcinoma underwent a second-look operation (SLO) from August 1979 to December 1984. Previously, an initial laparotomy had been performed for staging and maximum cytoreductive surgery. This was followed by 6 to 12 courses of combination chemotherapy including cisplatin. Findings at SLO and outcome are discussed as regards extent of initial surgery, preoperative assessment and secondary debulking procedure. In this work, the findings at SLO were often predictable, and related to the adequacy of initial surgery and to a clinical complete response. Nevertheless, after incomplete initial cytoreductive surgery, SLO appears the best procedure to assess the status of the peritoneal cavity and the efficacy of chemotherapy. Negative SLO after incomplete initial surgery assessed a complete response rate of 34% induced by the cisplatin-based chemotherapy. Survival rate of patients with a negative SLO was 93% at 3 years, which demonstrated the highly significant value of SLO in prognosis. Conversely, patient survival with positive findings at SLO was very low, whatever resection can be made. As this work and similar studies by others showed that it could improve patient survival, an attempt should be made to a secondary debulk of residual tumor, and it seems interesting to perform further such secondary resections until definite conclusions can be drawn about this procedure.