Objective To study the features of lymph node metastasis in gastric stump cancer （GSC） in order to provide the basis for the reasonable lymph node dissection in the GSC lymphadenectomy. Methods Twenty-two GSC patients accepted residual radical gastrectomy and 50 primary gastric cancer patients accepted distal D2 lymphadenectomy by the same surgeon from June 2004 to June 2012 at the department of general surgery-pediatric surgery of the People’s Hospital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region were included in this retrospective study. And the clinicopathologic factors and lymph node metastasis were compared in two groups. Results The combined organ resection rate in the primary gastric cancer patients was significantly lower than that in the GSC patients 〔14.00% （7/50） versus 54.55% （12/22），χ2=12.929，P=0.000〕. In the lymph node metastasis，the total positive rate and No.10 positive rate of lymph node metastasis in the GSC patients were significantly higher than those in the primary gastric cancer patients 〔30.56% （103/337） versus 22.13% （208/940），χ2=9.583，P=0.002；52.17% （12/23） versus 17.39% （4/23），χ2=6.133，P=0.013〕. The positive rate of lympl node micrometastasis between the GSC patients and primary gastric cancer patients was no significant difference〔2.97% （10/337） versus 1.49% （14/940），χ2=2.939，P=0.086〕 . There was 4/12 lymph node micrometastasis in the GSC patients，which was 0/4 in the primary gastric cancer patients. The positive rate of the jejunal mesentery lymph node metastasis was 35.71% （5/14） in the GSC patients. Conclusions GSC has a unique pattern in lymph node metastasis. D2 dissection and jejunsl mesentery lymph node dissection should be performed for these patients，especially，on No.10 lymph nodes. If needed，en bloc resection with invaded adjacent organs should be considered．