title: Lessons learned from 100 initial cases of laparoscopic liver surgery.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Laparoscopic liver resection (LLR) is now widely accepted and is being increasingly performed. The present study describes our experience with LLR at a single center over an eight-year period.
  
  
  METHODS
  This retrospective study enrolled 100 patients between October 2002 and February 2010. Forty-six benign lesions and 54 malignant lesions were included. The LLR performed included 58 pure laparoscopy procedures, 18 hand-assisted laparoscopy procedures and 24 hybrid technique procedures.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean age of the patients was 57 years; among these patients, 31 were over 65 years of age. The mean operation time was 220 minutes. The overall morbidity was 11% and the mortality was zero. Among the 20 patients with simple hepatic cysts, 50% unexpectedly recurred. Among the 41 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, 21 patients (51%) underwent preoperative radiofrequency ablation therapy or transarterial chemoembolization. During parenchymal-transection, 11 received blood transfusion. The width of the resection margins was under 0.5 cm in 11 cases (27%); 0.5 to 1 cm in 22 cases (54%) and over 1 cm in eight cases (12%). There was no port site seeding, but argon beam coagulation-induced tumor dissemination was observed in two cases. The overall two-year survival rate was 75%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study suggests that the applications for LLR can be gradually expanded when assuring that the safety and curability of LLR are equivalent to that of open liver resection.
authors: Department of Surgery, Dong-A University College of Medicine, Busan, Korea.
authors: Mi Ri
authors: MR
authors: Lee
authors: Young Hoon
authors: YH
authors: Kim
authors: Young Hoon
authors: YH
authors: Roh
authors: Sung Yong
authors: SY
authors: Oh
authors: Jin Han
authors: JH
authors: Cho
authors: Jong Hoon
authors: JH
authors: Lee
authors: Sung Wook
authors: SW
authors: Lee
authors: Myung Hwan
authors: MH
authors: Roh
authors: Jin Sook
authors: JS
authors: Jeong
authors: Sang Young
authors: SY
authors: Han
authors: Ghap Joong
authors: GJ
authors: Jung