Abstract Laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy (LDP) has emerged as an alternative approach to traditional open surgery for managing isolated pathology in the body and tail of the pancreas. Experience with this technique to date is limited with only small series reported in the literature. Common difficulties with this operation are related to dissection of the pancreas from the portal vein and management of the pancreatic stump. In this paper we describe our single centre experience to date and describe strategies we have developed which we believe facilitate safe and effective laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy.