[Is diagnostic laparoscopy a reliable addition to preoperative staging of pancreatic carcinoma?].

Over the last decade several authors proposed adopting diagnostic laparoscopy as an early diagnostic routine method in the staging of pancreatic carcinoma to prevent exploratory laparotomy. In our hospital only 11.6% of all patients who underwent explorative laparotomy would have benefitted from diagnostic laparoscopy. Therefore, we do not recommend diagnostic laparoscopy as a routine method to assess resectability of pancreatic carcinoma?