Laparoscopy in liver disease.

Laparoscopy was technically successful in 73 of 75 patients in whom liver disease was suspected but not accurately diagnosed after medical investigation. In 46 patients (63%) the final histological diagnosis was either diffuse parenchymatous disease (cirrhosis/hepatitis) or metastatic malignant disease; 2 had a curable medical disease (tuberculous ascites); and 6 had a curable surgical disease (5 with gallstones and 1 with an ectopic adrenal tumour). There were no deaths and no serious complications. With increasingly accurate non-invasive techniques for localising lesions in the liver, laparoscopy, with directed biopsy, should help to provide correspondingly accurate histological confirmation.