Objective To study the clinical efficacy and adverse reactions of the preoperative neo-adjuvant chemotherapy with oxaliplatin plus fluorouracil and calcium folinate (FOLFOX) in the treatment of advanced gastric carcinoma that was difficult to undergo radical operation. Methods We enrolled 16 patients with advanced gastric carcinomas that were unable to undergo radical operation admitted to our hospital from April 2008 to October 2009. The neo-adjuvant chemotherapy regimen was oxaliplatin 130 mg/m~2 for first one, fluorouracil 500 mg/m~2 and calcium folinate 200 mg/m~2 from first day to fifth day,and one treatment course was three weeks and the patients underwent two courses.The changes of the primary lesion and the adverse reactions of the patients were observed. Results Carcinomas of 13 patients were degraded after the treatment, of which, 11 patients underwent radical resections after 4-6 weeks after operation.There were two cases of complete remission (CR) , 10 cases of partial remission (PR), three cases of stable disease(SD) and one case of progress disease(PD) , and the total effective rate was 75.0% (12/16). Adverse reactions included bone marrow suppression, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting and paresthesia, which were relieved after appropriate symptomatic treatment. Conclusions Neoadjuvant chemotherapy with FOLFOX can improve the resection rate of the advanced gastric carcinoma that is unable to undergo radical resection, and the patients' tolerability to this regimen is favorable.Thus, the regimen is worthy of generalizing.