[The role of laparoscopy in pulmonary disease (author's transl)]

Laparoscopy demonstrated sarcoidosis in 79 of 94 proven cases. In addition, it made it possible to assess the involvement of intraabdominal organs which cannot be judged clinically or biochemically and may not be parallel to changes in the thoracic X-ray. Extensive liver sarcoidosis was revealed in 12 and required treatment independent of other organ manifestations. Miliary exudative or cavernous pulmonary tuberculosis in 15 cases revealed gross non-specific changes in one, miliary foci of the liver surface in 13 and coarse nodular infiltration in one. In each case the visual findings were confirmed histologically in the liver biopsy, in 11 before the bacteriological results were known, which retrospectively were positive in only 9 instances. Laparoscopy is, therefore, an important and relatively sparing test, also in confirmation of pulmonary disease (sarcoidosis, certain forms of tuberculosis).