الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
This study included forty patients admitted to the department of surgery at the main university hospital, university of Alexandria for resection of an abdominal mass. Of the 40 patients 23 were females (57.5%) and 17 were males (42.5%) . There ages ranged from 31 years to 70 years with a mean age of 53 years . 35 patients had malignant abdominal masses (87.5%) and 5 had benign masses(12.5%). The distribution of the masses were 16 colorectal tumors, 6 gastric tumors, 5 pancreatic tumors, 3 suprarenal tumors , 2 liver tumors , 2 ovarian cysts, 1 small intestinal tumor, 1 gall bladder tumor, 1 mesenteric cyst, 1 splenic tumor,1 appendicular tumor & 1 testicular tumor. All patients were subjected to preoperative assessment in the form of history taking, clinical examination, routine & specific laboratory and radiological investigations as needed. After induction of anesthesia all the patients were subjected to diagnostic laparoscopy. The setup time for the laparoscope ranged from 10 minutes 11 seconds to 14 minutes 34 seconds with a mean time of 12 minutes 15 seconds while the actual diagnostic laparoscopy time ranged from 7 minutes 45 seconds to 19 minutes 37 seconds with a mean time of 10 minutes 55 seconds. Diagnostic Laparoscopy demonstrated a benefit over radiological studies in 3 aspects :
1)Showing whether laparoscopic intervention is feasible or not and hence
allowing it to be performed in 10 patients (25%) .
2)Altering the preoperative staging of malignant tumors by detecting CT and U/S
occult metastasis in 9 patients (25.7%) .
3)Changing or verifying the preoperative diagnosis (anatomical or pathological) in
8 patients (20%) .
Overall in 21 patients (52.5%) DL demonstrated a benefit over radiological studies either directly or indirectly (by showing that laparoscopic intervention is possible).
As regards complications of laparoscopy one port site hematoma was encountered (2.5%) and was treated conservatively. No other complications were encountered.
Missed adjacent organ or vascular invasion was found at laparotomy in 7 cases. Laparoscopy was also found to be defective in the assessment of retroperitoneal and intraluminal tumors.