Background: In previous clinical trials of adjuvant chemotherapy for gastric cancer, severe toxicity and discontinuation of chemotherapy was more common in patients receiving total gastrectomy (TG) than in those with distal gastrectomy (DG). However, data on the significance of the extent of gastric resection for stage IV gastric cancer treated with systemic chemotherapy are not available. Methods: This is a retrospective review of patients who were received chemotherapy with S-1 and cisplatin for stage IV gastric cancer at our institution between June 2009 and August 2015. The patients were classified into three groups according to the extent of gastrectomy (TG, DG and no gastric resection (NG)) before chemotherapy. Patient characteristics, survival and toxicities of chemotherapy were compared between three groups. Results: Among the 83 patients, 24 underwent TG, 19 DG, and 40 NG. Patient characteristics were well balanced between three groups. There was no significant difference in the requirement for dose reduction between TG, DG and NG patients (29% vs 11% vs 20%, respectively, p= 0.32). However, the rate of discontinuation because of toxicity was significantly higher in TG than in DG or NG patients (46% vs 16% vs 25%, respectively, p= 0.04). The main reasons of discontinuation were anorexia (43%), myelosuppression (23%), nausea (18%) and diarrhea (16%). The median progression-free survival was 8.9, 6.1 and 5.3 months (p= 0.25), and the median overall survival was 16.0, 16.0 and 9.8 months (p= 0.40) in the patients with TG, DG and NG, respectively. Conclusions: There was a high frequency of discontinuation of systemic chemotherapy in the advanced gastric cancer patients who underwent TG, but it was not associated with prognosis.