Laparoscopy for gastrointestinal diseases

The laparoscope is an important diagnostic and therapeutic tool in the management and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases. The authors' personal experience includes 165 consecutive laparoscopic examinations over a 3-year period. Local anesthesia was employed in 150 patients. The diagnostic accuracy was 95% for acute abdominal pain syndromes, 93% for ascites of unknown etiology, 92% for abdominal masses, 91% for focal liver disease, and 43% for chronic abdominal pain syndromes. Sixteen patients had non-diagnostic percutaneous biopsy or aspiration. In all these patients definitive diagnosis was made at laparoscopy. The morbidity rate was 1.8%. These data indicate that laparoscopy is a highly accurate diagnostic modality in a wide range of gastrointestinal disorders.