From 1974 to May 1991, 417 patients with abdominal hydatid cyst disease were surgically treated. Twenty-eight patients had extrahepatic abdominal cyst disease (6.7%). Six patients had only extrahepatic disease where as 22 had associated hepatic and extrahepatic cysts. Most frequent sites were the peritoneum (52.7%), the spleen (22%) and pelvis (11%). Fourteen out of the 14 CT scans performed, detected the extrahepatic cysts. The preferred surgical technique was total closed cystectomy (in hepatic and extrahepatic cysts). Resection of the organ affected (8 splenectomies, 1 nephrectomy, 1 partial vertebral resection, 1 orchiectomy and 1 salpingo-oophorectomy) was also performed. There was no mortality and morbidity was 32.1%: 3 intraabdominal abscesses, 1 intraabdominal haemorrhage, 4 biliary fistulae and 1 partial necrosis of the large bowel. Only 3 patients (neither were treated with mebendazole) were reoperated on for recurrent peritoneal hydatic cyst.