Diagnostic procedures in the evaluation of hepatic diseases. Laparoscopy.

In the more than 80 years that it has been practiced, laparoscopy has proved to be a procedure that provides a high level of differential diagnostic information. Although its main indications, general application, and practical assessment have been variously assessed by various investigators at different times in different countries, our own experience, based on more than 12,500 investigations involving predominantly hepatological problems, indicates that laparoscopy today remains one of the main pillars of our differential-diagnostic armamentarium.