BACKGROUND: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is a standard treatment for cholelithiasis and indication is continuously widened to acute and complicated cholecystitis. It has been proved to give advantages such as less postoperative pain, postoperative complications and early recovery. However, postoperative hepatic dysfunction after laparoscopic cholecystectomy has been repeatedly reported and when we evaluate postoperative hepatic dysfunction, laparoscopic surgery has been thought as one of the contributors. So authors planned this study to satisfy the growing need of reevaluation of postoperative hepatic dysfunction because we have had many achivements and improvements in knowledge and operative techniques since a while. METHODS: From January to December in 2000, 182 patients were randomly selected among who had undergone cholecystectomy in one university hospital. The numbers of each group (group OC; open, group LC; laparoscopy) were equal. Demographic data, duration of operation and level of liver enzymes (alanine transferase, alkaline phosphatase, total bilirubin and direct bilirubin) on operation day and one postoperative day were estimated by medical records. RESULTS: Mean operation time was longer in group OC than in group LC. Levels of alanine transferase, total bilirubin and direct bilirubin of postoperative one day were increased significantly in both groups. The degrees of increase of alanine transferase and bilirubin were higher in group OC than group LC in statistically significant manner. CONCLUSIONS: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy has more advantages than open cholecystectomy in many aspects.