Background: Liver resection performed by open surgery is standard treatment in selected patients with liver tumours. Recently, laparoscopic resection of the liver has been reported to be safe, with possible advantages to the patients such as reduced discomfort and shorter hospital stay. In this report we describe our preliminary experience with laparoscopic liver resection.
Material and methods: 32 liver resections were performed in 19 patients during 23 procedures; i.e., four patients had repeated resections. Indications were colorectal metastases (15 patients), focal nodular hyperplasia (two patients), liver cyst (one patient) and metastasis from malignant melanoma (one patient). Three left lobectomies were done, the other resections were partial resections.
Results: Median duration of surgery was 187 minutes. Perioperative bleeding was median 650 ml. Tumour tissue was found in the resection margin in one patient and in three patients the resection margin was shorter than 1 mm. No procedures were converted to open resection. Median postoperative hospital stay was 3.5 days. Need of opioids were median 1 day. There was no 30 day mortality.
Interpretation: Laparoscopic liver resection is safe in selected patients, but randomized trials between open and laparoscopic resections are necessary.