Seventy-six patients with cervical cancers underwent preoperative abdominopelvic computed tomography before a pelvic lymphadenectomy to evaluate the efficacy of computed tomography in assessing pelvic lymph node metastases. The sensitivity and the specificity of computed tomography for detecting pelvic lymph node metastases were judged to be 70.6 and 89.8%, respectively. In 54 patients in stage Ib or IIa of the disease, the sensitivity and specificity were 85.7 and 91.5%, respectively. Although inaccuracies could be caused by normal-sized metastasized lymph nodes and by enlarged lymph nodes with reactive hyperplasia, computed tomography was found to be a useful method of detecting a pelvic lymph node metastasis.