Aims: The aim of the study was to evaluate some clinicopathologic characteristics and the outcome of patients with ovarian germ cell cancer (OGCC) treated with cisplatin-based chemotherapy. Methods: It was a clinical retrospective study. The clinical charts of 31 patients with OGCC assisted at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the State University of Campinas, Brazil, from January 1986 to June 1997 were reviewed. Results: Ten patients had dysgerminoma and 21 patients nondysgerminomatous tumors. Women with dysgerminoma and nondysgerminomatous tumors did not present differences regarding surgical staging, age, ascites or residual tumor after the Initial surgery. Frozen section, performed in 16 patients, showed some discrepancy with paraffin histology diagnosis in 8 patients. Platinum-based chemotherapy was used in 5/10 patients with dysgerminoma and in 17/21 patients with nondysgerminomatous tumors, with a 5-year survival of 100% for the dysgerminoma and 53% for the nondysgerminomatous group. Conclusions: women with dysgerminoma and nondysgerminomatous tumors did not present differences regarding clinicopathologic characteristics. The prognosis for patients with dysgerminoma was better than for those with nondysgerminomatous tumors. Frozen section had a high error rate in diagnosing OGCC intraoperatively.866450454