Laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) has rapidly gained wide acceptance in the United States. The applicability, safety and efficacy of this new procedure for the treatment of cholelithiasis in Taiwan, however, needs evaluation. We performed LC in 50 out of 98 cases of cholelithiasis at Cathay General Hospital from 28 December 1990 to 28 April 1991. We found that the applicability rate was 51%. The reasons for not selecting LC in the 48 open cases were: acute and gangrenous cholecystitis (13), common bile duct stones (11), concomitant intra-abdominal malignancy (5), intrahepatic stones (5), multiple upper abdominal incisions (4), pancreatitis or pancreatic abscesses (3) and other causes (7). In the LC group, there were 44 patients with symptomatic chronic calculus cholecystitis, 3 patients with acute calculus cholecystitis and 3 patients with gall bladder polyps. The age of the patients ranged from 27 to 79. There were 14 males and 36 females. All of the patients had a detailed preoperative workup including complete liver function test and sonographic examination of the hepatobiliary system. Additional pre-operative endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatographies were done in 3 and operative cholangiograms were done in another 3 to confirm the absence of common bile duct stones or to delineate anatomy. Although we encountered a few problems during the operations, such as severe adhesion, bleeding, difficult dissection, CO2 leakage, difficult insufflation, or large stones, all of the 50 patients completed the LC successfully without conversion to open cholecystectomy. The average operation time was 60 minutes, ranging from 30 to 135 minutes. Drain tubes were used in 7 cases.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)