The prognostic significance of pelvic lymph node metastases in cases of invasive cervical carcinoma treated by radical hysterectomy (meigs- Okabayashi -Held) was analysed in a series of 142 patients who underwent such a procedure during the past ten years at the Gynecological University Hospital in Zurich. Discrepancies between clinical and anatomical staging were noted in 24.6% of the cases. Anatomically, 6 neoplasms were stage Ia lesions, 96 stage Ib, 9 stage IIa and 7 stage IIb. Pelvic lymph node metastases were found in 24 further cases (16.9%) which had, therefore, to be classified as anatomic stage III. The tumour recurred postoperatively in only 9 of the 118 patients (7.6%) with anatomic stage Ia-IIb lesions, but in 10 of the 24 patients with stage III carcinomas (41.7%). In this series, none of the relapsing tumours could be cured, whatever the treatment was. This means that the 6 times higher recurrence rate observed in cases with pelvic lymph node metastases also implicates a 6 times higher mortality.