PURPOSE: Laparoscopic gastric resection (LGR) is increasingly being used instead of open gastric resection (OGR) as the standard surgical treatment for gastric submucosal tumors. Yet there are few reports on which technique shows better postoperative outcomes. This study was performed to compare these two treatment modalities for gastric submucosal tumors by evaluating the postoperative outcomes. We also provide an analysis of the learning curve for LGR. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Between 2003.4 and 2008.8, 103 patients with a gastric submucosal tumor underwent either LGR (N=78) or OGR (n=25). A retrospective review was performed on a prospectively obtained database of 103 patients. We reviewed the data with regard to the operative time, the blood loss during the operation, the time to the first soft diet, the postoperative hospital stay, the tumor size and the tumor location. RESULTS: The clinicopatholgic and tumor characteristics of the patients were similar for both groups. There was no open conversion in the LGR group. The mean operation time and the bleeding loss were not different between the LGR group and the OWR group. The time to first soft diet (3.27 vs. 6.16 days, P<0.001) and the length of the postoperative hospital stay (7.37 vs. 8.88 days, P=0.002) were shorter in the LGR group compared to the OGR group. The tumor size was bigger in the OGR group than that in the LGR group (6.44 vs. 3.65 cm, P<0.001). When performing laparoscopic gastric resection of gastric SMT, the surgeon was able to decrease the operation time and bleeding loss with gaining more experience. We separated the total cases into 3 periods to compare the operation time, the bleeding losses and the complications. The third period showed the shortest operation time, the least bleeding loss and the fewest complications. CONCLUSION: LGR for treating a gastric submucosal tumor was superior to OGR in terms of the postoperative outcomes. An operator needs some experience to perform a complete laparoscopic gastric resection. Laparoscopic resection could be considered the first-line treatment for gastric submucosal tumors.