Laparoscopic and robotic hepatectomy: experience from a single centre

Background Both laparoscopic and robotic hepatectomy have been adopted in our centre for selected patients with benign or malignant liver diseases. This article reports the perioperative outcomes of these two approaches and tries to determine any difference between them. Methods A retrospective review of prospectively collected data was performed for all patients who underwent laparoscopic hepatectomy (LH) and robotic hepatectomy (RH) in our institute. The perioperative results were reported and compared. In order to standardise the type of liver resection performed, a subgroup analysis was made for laparoscopic left lateral sectionectomy (LS) and robotic left lateral sectionectomy (RS). Results Sixty-six LH and 70 RH were performed between November 2003 and January 2015. The two groups were comparable in demographic data and disease characteristics except more patient with recurrent pyogenic cholangitis (RPC) occurred in RH group. More major hepatectomies were performed in RH (20.0% versus 3.0%, P = 0.002). There was no mortality. No difference was noted in morbidity (LH 4.5%, RH 11.4%), conversion rate (LH 12.1%, RH 5.7%), median blood loss (both 100 mL) and median length of post-operative hospital stay (both 5 days) but operative time was longer in RH (251.5 min versus 215 min, P = 0.008). There were 29 LS and 38 RS, no difference was noted in all perioperative outcomes between the two groups. Conclusion Both laparoscopic and robotic hepatectomy are safe and their perioperative outcomes are comparable and favourable.