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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Surg. Jan 27, 2016; 8(1): 5-26
Published online Jan 27, 2016. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v8.i1.5
Laparoscopic liver resection: Experience based guidelines
Fabricio Ferreira Coelho, Jaime Arthur Pirola Kruger, Gilton Marques Fonseca, Raphael Leonardo Cunha Araújo, Vagner Birk Jeismann, Marcos Vinícius Perini, Renato Micelli Lupinacci, Ivan Cecconello, Paulo Herman
Fabricio Ferreira Coelho, Jaime Arthur Pirola Kruger, Gilton Marques Fonseca, Raphael Leonardo Cunha Araújo, Vagner Birk Jeismann, Ivan Cecconello, Paulo Herman, Liver Surgery Unit, Department of Gastroenterology, University of São Paulo Medical School, São Paulo, CEP 05403-900, Brazil
Marcos Vinícius Perini, Austin Health, Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne, Heidelberg, VIC 3084, Australia
Renato Micelli Lupinacci, Service de Chirurgie Digestive, Viscérale et Endocrinienne Groupe Hospitalier Diaconesses-Croix Saint Simon, 75020 Paris, France
Author contributions: Coelho FF, Kruger JAP and Herman P designed the study, reviewed the literature, collected data, wrote the manuscript and approved the final version of the manuscript; Fonseca GM, Araújo RLC and Jeismann VB reviewed the literature, collected data and wrote the manuscript; Perini MV, Lupinacci RM and Ceconello I completed final revision of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors have no conflict of interest related to the manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Fabricio Ferreira Coelho, MD, PhD, Liver Surgery Unit, Department of Gastroenterology, University of Sao Paulo Medical School, Rua Dr. Enéas de Carvalho Aguiar, 255 - 9º andar - sala 9025, São Paulo, CEP 05403-900, Brazil. fabricio.coelho@hc.fm.usp.br
Telephone: +55-11-26617561 Fax: +55-11-26619008
Received: April 28, 2015
Peer-review started: May 7, 2015
First decision: August 4, 2015
Revised: September 7, 2015
Accepted: November 24, 2015
Article in press: November 25, 2015
Published online: January 27, 2016
Processing time: 268 Days and 0.7 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Liver surgery was one of the last frontiers reached by minimally invasive surgery. Surgical technique and specialized equipment evolved to overcome technical limitations, making laparoscopic liver resections (LLR) safe and feasible. Surgeons developed skills in a stepwise approach, beginning with low complexity operations for benign diseases and reaching high-complexity surgeries for malignant cases and living donor organ harvesting. Despite a cautious slow start laparoscopic liver surgery has been incorporated to practice. On the following pages the successful history of LLR is depicted, along with an updated panel of it’s current role and expected achievements.