Videolaparoscopia en el trauma abdominal

introduction: the video-laparoscopy carried out with emergency is one of the more important technological advances for an early diagnosis and the timely treatment of acute abdominal affections including those of traumatic cause. objective: to characterize patients with abdominal trauma submitted to videolaparoscopia of urgency according to the selected variables and to identify some features related to the implementation of this technique in our context. methods: a descriptive and observational study was conducted in 18 patients admitted due to abdominal trauma in the service of general surgery of the "saturnino lora" university hospital of santiago de cuba province from 2006 to 2007, who underwent emergency video-laparoscopy. results: there was predominance of young men and of open traumata. the echography and the abdominal puncture were the more used diagnostic methods. in the two third of the series, the video-laparoscopy was negative or diagnosed a simple peritoneal violation. the liver was the more frequent injured viscus. for the videolaparoscopy access are necessary two ports in most of series. two patients required conventional laparotomy for a conversion rate of 11.1 % avoinding 16 unnecessary laparotomies. the surgical time and the postoperative hospital stay were less in the videolaparoscopy surgery than in the conventional laparotomy. conclusions: the videolaparoscopy carried out with emergency may be considered a tool of usefulness demonstrated for diagnosis and treatment of patients presenting with abdominal traumata because of it avoids many unnecessary laparotomies and allows an acceptable degree of certainty insofar as the surgeon improve and dominate this technology.