The necessity of urgent explorative laparotomy as a standard procedure in the treatment of abdominal penetratingwounds is controversial. Mandatory surgical intervention for penetrating abdominal trauma yields a high rate of negativelaparotomies in the absence of visceral injuries. Laparoscopy is an alternative diagnostic procedure inspectingthe peritoneum for signs of perforation and excluding significant intra-abdominal injuries. Following current guidelines,diagnostic laparoscopy should be used with caution only in selected cases due to the limited amount of reliabledata confirming the effectiveness of such treatment. We present a review of the literature analysing the role of diagnosticlaparoscopy in abdominal trauma.