[Right and left laparoscopic colectomy. Apropos of 10 cases]

Ten successive cases of celioscopic colectomy are reported (5 right and 5 left colons). Colectomies were made for diverticular disease in 6 case and for cancer in the remaining cases. The patients ages range from 52 to 80 years, with an average of 72 years. The average duration of surgery is 92 minutes. The stay in hospital lasted from 5 to 7 days with an average of 6 days. All patients resumed fluid feeding on the 3rd postoperative day and solid feeding on the 4th to 6th day. None of them received analgesics later than 48 hours postoperatively. There was no mortality. Only one complication was noted in the form of urinary retention. In our opinion, colectomy with celioscopic video surgery currently has a definite role to play and, owing to technical and instrumental progress, colectomy can be performed without complementary laparotomy, at least for the left colon.