[Diagnostic laparoscopy. Its current indications]

Operative laparoscopy and laparoscopic surgery are quite topical today, but not so much diagnostic laparoscopy. In fact, the wide distribution and great accuracy of new noninvasive exploratory techniques has revolutionized strategy for the diagnosis of abdominal diseases. It has been said that these techniques have now superseded laparoscopy, which should be abandoned. The reply should be that, indeed, laparoscopy has lost many of its classic indications, but that it still retains other important ones. The results obtained with a very close integration of laparoscopy and ultrasonography should particularly be emphasized, as they provide a decrease in risks and an improvement of diagnoses.