Journal of the American College of Surgeons
-
Recent reports highlighting reduced mortality rates to less than 1% after hepatic resections have evaluated the management of selected patients. The current risk of liver resection in unselected patients needs to be more clearly defined to appreciate the actual risk of new indications. ⋯ The 1% basic risk of elective liver resection on normal liver suggests that indications of resection for malignancy could be extended, unless an associated extrahepatic procedure is needed. Because of this low basic risk, future studies evaluating resection on normal liver should not consider in-hospital mortality as the only end point.