Background: Although both the number of lymph node metastasis (N stage) and the ratio between positive and dissected lymph nodes (RPD) are considered the best categories of lymph node metastasis for prognostic prediction for gastric cancer (GC), the negative lymph node count was identified to be another powerful indicator of survival of GC in our previous investigation.At present study, we intended to elucidate the prognostic prediction superiority of the ratio between negative and positive lymph nodes (RNP) in GC, compared to N stage and RpD.Methods: Clinicopathological data of 1563 GC patients who underwent the curative resection between 1997 and 2006 were statistically analyzed for demonstration the prognostic significances of the RN, stage, the N stage and RpD stage.Besides, Tumor-RNP-Metastasis (TRNPM) classification system was also evaluated the comparative superiorities of the prognostic prediction of GC patients, compared to the TNM and Tumor-RPD-Metastasis (TRPDM) classification systems.Results: With the univariate and multivariate analyses, TRNPM classification was identified as the independently prognostic predictor of GC patients, as were TNM and TRpDM classifications.Furthermore, TRNPM classification was demonstrated to have the smaller Akaike information criterion (AIC) and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) values compared with those for TNM and TRPDM classifications.In addition, TRNPM classification had more stage migrations than TRPDM classification, compared with TNM classification.Conclusion: TRNPM classification should be considered as the optimal clinicopathologic variable for evaluation the prognosis of GC after curative resection in clinic.