The laparoscopic staging of primary biliary cirrhosis.

The laparoscopic photographs of 38 cases of primary biliary cirrhosis with high titres of mitochondrial antibodies were reviewed. The quality of laparoscopic photography is now so high that it proved possible to use these photographs as the basis of a system of laparoscopic staging. By analogy with the system of histological classification, the disease was divided into four stages. Laparoscopy provides an alternative approach to the diagnosis of primary biliary cirrhosis, which should be based on clinical, biochemical, immunological and morphological data. However, by laparoscopy alone it is improssible to separate pure primary biliary cirrhosis from its mixed forms with chronic active hepatitis.