The incidence of gastric cancer ranks the fourth highest malignant tumor in the world, and the associated mortality rate takes the second place. Surgical resection is still the only curative treatment option for this disease. At present, there is great controversy on the para-aortic lymph node dissection (PAND) for advanced gastric cancer. The results of JCOG 9501 trial showed that preventive PAND is not recommended, but the clinical significance of therapeutic PAND still needs further clinical investigations. In recent years, a large number of studies on PAND in advanced gastric cancer have been done by many researchers at home and abroad, and their achievements have important reference value for the selection of PAND.