In order to investigate the effect and its mechanism of esculetin on human gastric carcinoma SGC-7901 cells, the effect of esculetin on human gastric carcinoma SGC-7901 cells were investigated by MTT method in vitro studies. Then the morphological feature changes of apoptosis cells with esculetin of different concentration by transmission electron microscope were observed and the levels of Cty-c in SGC-7901 cells line using FCM method were analyzed. The results revealed that the Esculetin significantly inhibited the growth of human gastric carcinoma SGC-7901 cells and greatly decreased its growth rate with the esculetin concentration increased, and then the morphological feature changes of apoptosis cells had been observed. After 24h, esculetin could make that the concentration of Cty-c in endochylema and Caspase-3 were all increased. Thus the study showed that esculetin remarkably inhibited the growth of human gastric carcinoma SGC-7901 cells and induce its apoptosis.