Objective: To investigate the clinical efficacy of hand-assisted laparoscopic surgery (HALS) in the radical operation of colon cancer. Methods: Patients with colon cancer admitted to our hospital from January of 2010 to May of 2011 were selected and randomly divided into the HALS group (21 cases), conventional laparoscopic surgery (LS) group (25 cases) and open surgery group (24 cases). The clinical results of the three groups were compared and analyzed. Results: HALS was successfully performed on all of the 21 cases of HALS group, and in LS group, LS was performed on 23 cases and 2 cases were converted to open surgery, but the conversion rates between the two groups had no statistical difference. The average operative time of the HALS group was shorter than that of the LS group (153.9 min vs. 171.7 min) (P=0.011). There were no statistical differences in intraoperative blood loss, average length of hospitalization, total cost, time to first passage of gas, and number of dissected lymph nodes between the HALS and LS group (all P>0.05). Compared with the open surgery group, the operative time of the HALS group was somewhat prolonged (153.9 min vs. 131.8 min) (P=0.002), but the intraoperative blood loss, time to first passage of gas, and the average length of hospital stay were markedly reduced (all P<0.05), and the numbers of dissected lymph nodes between the 2 groups had no obvious difference. Conclusion: HALS for radical resection of colon cancer not only has the same advantage of minimal invasion, safe and quick recovery as the conventional LS, but also shortens the operative time.