Objective To investigate the efficacy and safety of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy for stage ⅠB2-ⅡB cervical cancer. Methods From June 2012 to December 2014, 66 patients with stage ⅠB2-ⅡB cervical cancer were selected and treated by PT (cisplatin/ carboplatin and taxol/docetaxel) as neo-adjuvant chemotherapy prior to surgery. Neo-adjuvant chemotherapy response and toxicity were collected and analyzed. Results The extinctive condition of tumor by neo-adjuvant chemotherapy: the complete remission rate was 10.6% (7/66), partial remission rate was 59.1% (39/66), and the total effective rate was 69.7%. The main toxicities were myelosuppression (59.1%, 39/66) and gastrointestinal reactions (33.3%, 22/66). The toxicities could be tolerated or relieved by prevention and treatment. The effective rate of chemotherapy for cervical squamous cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, adenosquamous carcinoma was 72.6%, 33.3% and 0%, respectively, with significant differences among the three types (P<0.05). The effective rate of chemotherapy for high, medium and low differentiated cervical cancer was 100.0%, 77.3% and 55.9%, respectively, with significant differences among the three degrees (P<0.05). Conclusions Neo-adjuvant chemotherapy is proved to be a safe and effective complementary treatment for most patients with locally advanced cervical cancer. Due to the limitation of sample size, the correlations between therapeutic effect and tumor differentiation degree and between therapeutic effect and pathological type need further study.