Laparoscopic preparation before colectomy consists of freeing the colon laparoscopically followed by a small elective laparotomy for resection and anastomosis. From January 1993 to October 1994, we performed 86 consecutive planned colectomies including 16 (19%) which had laparoscopic preparation. In 3 of these cases (19%) the procedure was converted to laparotomy due to difficult dissection. The 13 patients with complete laparoscopically prepared colectomy were retained for this study. There were 9 men and 4 women, mean age 54 +/- 14 years (range 34-79). Indications for surgery were benign tumor (n = 4), metastatic cancer (n = 3), diverticulosis (n = 3), volvulus of the pelvic colon (n = 2), and endometriosis involving the sigmoid (n = 1). Operative procedures were: short segmentary colectomy (n = 6), sigmoidectomy (n = 5), right colectomy (n = 2). Surgery duration was 280 +/- 75 minutes (range 150-390). The post-operative period was uneventful in all patients. Bowel activity resumed on the second day after surgery in most patients. Mean hospitalization time was 7.4 +/- 1.4 days (range 5-10 days). Laparoscopically prepared colectomy is a reliable simple method providing good patient comfort post-operatively. This technique should find its place in surgery of the colon.