During the past 9 years, reports of 'port-site' deposits following laparoscopic surgery for malignancy, especially laparoscopic resection of colonic cancer, have cast a shadow on the wisdom of the laparoscopic approach in the surgical man agement in patients with cancer. Those reports of port-site deposits, some 90 cases reported in the literature up to 1999, have opened a 'can of worms' and highlighted the scarcity of our knowledge on cancer cell migration from solid tu mors and the factors that underlie their successful implantation in surgical wounds both in the presence and absence of a...