Purpose: Among the various surgical methods used for the effective treatment of cystic lesion in the jaws historically, decompression procedure has some of superior prognosis compare to direct enucleation. In order to propose the efficacy of decompression we performed this retrospective study to compare decompression procedure with one-stage enucleation in clinical results and prognosis. Patients and Methods: We reviewed 175 patients who had been histopathologically diagnosed cystic lesions from 1996 to 2000 in our department. Patients who had been received decompression alone or secondary enucleation after decompression were 31 cases, and enucleation alone were 144 cases. The age and sex of the patients, the area, size, and histological type of the lesions, and detailed operation and complications including recurrence were investigated. The minimal follow-up period was 2 years. Results: In 31cases of decompression, male patients were 22cases(71%) similar to male predilection(62.3%) in total 175 cases. Cystic lesions were developed evenly in all age groups totally. Decompression was mainly performed in teenagers but enucleation was used in elder decades. In decompression cases the lesions were located in mandibular posterior, maxillary posterior, mandibular anterior, and maxillary anterior in order, which had some differences in total and enucleation cases. In enucleation cases, less than 3cm in size was 77.1% but larger than 3cm was 93.5% in decompression cases. Histopathologically, dentigerous cysts(54.8%), unicystic ameloblastomas(16.1%), and odontogenic keratocysts(12.9%) were seen in decompression cases and no recurrence or metaplasia and infection was observed. On the other hand, permanent tooth loss, numbness, recurrence, and so on were accompanied after enucleation. Conclusion: Although decompression procedure has disadvantages such as many of visiting times and slow recovery of the surgical defect, decompression is the best choice of treatment for large cystic lesions of the jaws, because it prevents functional and cosmetic defect, allows bone regeneration, and makes easy secondary enucleation.