Laparoscopic surgery, also known as “minimally invasive surgery” or “micro-access surgery,” is performed by using a 3mm to 10mm diameter laparoscope to enter the abdominal cavity through a 1cm diameter puncture hole and then placing other minimally invasive instruments into the abdominal cavity. The laparoscope is illuminated with a cold light source and the images are displayed on a monitor using digital camera technology. The surgeon then performs the procedure by observing the monitor. 1. Advantages of laparoscopic colorectal cancer surgery Studies have found that laparoscopic colorectal cancer surgery has many advantages compared with traditional surgery. Faster incision healing after laparoscopy helps patients with colorectal cancer to undergo adjuvant chemotherapy early. Patients recovered gastrointestinal function faster after laparoscopy, with less incidence of postoperative bowel obstruction, shorter hospital stays, and faster return to daily activities. Although some studies have suggested that laparoscopic colorectal surgery is longer, there is no impact on patient safety, and with further maturation of the technique, the operative time does not differ from open surgery or is even shorter. Studies have shown that laparoscopic surgery has similar or lower rates of complications, reoperation rates, mortality, and readmission rates than open surgery. The short-term advantages of laparoscopic colorectal surgery are more evident in the elderly, with significantly lower complications, shorter hospital stays, higher quality of life, and more favorable health economics evaluations relative to open surgery. 2. Radicality of laparoscopic colorectal cancer surgery Open surgery is currently the gold standard for the treatment of colorectal cancer. Laparoscopic surgery must meet the same criteria for radical tumor treatment as open surgery in order to be recognized, i.e., achieving adequate distance of the incision margin from the tumor and the extent and number of lymph node dissection. The current findings suggest that laparoscopic colorectal cancer surgery is consistent with the principle of radical tumor treatment. In addition, laparoscopic exploration can also detect peritoneal metastases that cannot be detected by clinical and other examinations and can be easily confirmed and biopsied as in open surgery, thus avoiding unnecessary open exploration. For liver lesions that cannot be identified by preoperative imaging, intraoperative laparoscopic ultrasound can completely compensate for the shortcomings of laparoscopy that cannot be touched and achieve the same effect as intraoperative ultrasound and touch. These suggest that the radical results of laparoscopic colorectal cancer surgery are the same as those of open surgery. In terms of the long-term results of surgery, several foreign scholars have made retrospective or controlled studies, and the results are that the postoperative survival rate of the laparoscopic surgery group is at least no worse than that of the open group.