The high incidence of a contralateral patent processus vaginalis has led to the development of new laparoscopic techniques which have revived the controversy around the contralateral exploration. With this project we evaluate the usefulness of laparoscopy in the diagnosis of contralateral inguinal hernia. It was performed in children between 0 and 15 years in the pediatric surgery service of the Central Military Hospital in the period between May 2005 and August 2008, through an observational, analytical, prospective cohort study. The study allowed us to determine through laparoscopy, which patients had contralateral inguinal hernia, making the correction in the same surgical time, avoiding the possibility of a complicated metachronous contralateral hernia, a new anesthetic risk and the cost of a second hospitalization; similarly these results were confonted with global statistics.