The purpose of this study was to investigate the status of the implementation of advance directive and to analyze its related factors. This study was a retrospective study of medical record review. The subjects were 327 cancer patients with hospice care in a Southern Taiwan Teaching Hospital from January, 2007 to April, 2008. SPSS for Windows 12.0 was used to analyze the data. The results of the study showed that most 316 (96.9%) of the 327 patients provided informed consent of do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders in which official version used was 59.2%. Among these patients, the majority 307 (97.8%) of 316 whose consent sheet was signed by family members. The relationship between the patients and their family members who had signed up, offsprings took account for 204 (65.5%) of all relatives. On the other hand, doctors (44.4%) still play the important role to explain and to persuade signing the DNR consent. The time interval between signature and death was 11 days. The major factor that directly impact on signing DNR is the department of patient care, the signing rate is higher in hematology/oncology division than in non-hematology/oncology divisions. It is suggested that encouraging the medical personnel to discuss the DNR consent earlier with cancer patients and their families, the better decision could be made. These factors, as a reference for the clinical practices and educational courses, are to probe into implementing the advance directives for cancer patients.