Laparoscopic liver resection: 5-year experience at a single center

From January 2008 to December 2012, 173 enrolled patients with HCC underwent laparoscopic liver resection. The male-to-female ratio was 3:1. The mean age of the patients was 56 years (range 16–83 years). The follow-up period for 130 patients was 21.6 ± 16.0 months (range 0–60 months). The mean tumor size was 3.73 cm (range 2–10 cm). The stages of HCC according to the Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) categorization were as follows: 0 (6 %), A1 (59.5 %), A2 (6.9 %), A4 (2.9 %), and B (27.2 %). Four patients required conversion to other techniques (2.3 %) because of the potential for major bleeding and tumor perforation. The types of resection were resection of one segment (segments 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8; 43.8 %), resection of two segments (posterior sector, anterior sector, segments 5 and 6, and left lateral sector; 47.9 %), resection of three segments (left and central liver; 4.7 %), and four segments (right liver; 3.6 %). The mean operation time was 112 ± 56 min (range 30–345 min), and the median blood loss was 100 ml (range 20–1,200 ml). The mean hospital stay was 6.5 ± 2.0 days (range, 3–19 days). No perioperative mortality occurred. The overall survival rates were 94.2 % at 1 year, 87 % at 2 years, 72.9 % at 3 years, 72.9 % at 4 years, and 72.9 % at 5 years. The mean overall survival time was 49.7 ± 2.1 months (range 45.5–53.9 months). The disease-free survival rates were 79.1 % at 1 year, 60 % at 2 years, 57 % at 3 years, 52 % at 4 years, and 26.3 % at 5 years. The mean disease-free survival time was 38.9 ± 2.6 months (range 33.9–44.0 months).