A novel technique for central hepatectomy: Maintain the blood supply and biliary drainage on one side and the blood supply from the portal vein on the other

Central hepatectomy is amongst the most difficult surgeries of liver tumors. For the routine local excision of a tumor, if the tumor has invaded the blood vessels or bile duct of the liver, then half of the liver or three lobes of the liver are resected. This results in two major drawbacks, one of which is that the residual hepatic lobe may not compensate for the damage, so it is not possible to perform conventional partial resection. The other is that the volume of normal liver tissue removed may be much more than the volume of tumor removed, causing substantial waste. In the present study, surgery was performed to resect a central liver tumor. In that surgery, the V segment and parts of the IV, VI and VIII segments were resected, and the blood supply and biliary drainage of the left hepatic lobe were kept intact. However, for the remaining VI, VII and VIII segments of the right hepatic lobe, only the blood supply from the portal vein was maintained and no arterial blood supply or biliary drainage was kept so that the patient had the opportunity to undergo radical resection and successful rehabilitation. The reason these opportunities may be possible is that the residual right liver is a temporary replacement therapy in the perioperative period. Therefore, for central hepatic tumors, particularly tumors that have invaded the neighboring bile ducts or blood vessels, if the blood supply and biliary drainage on one side is maintained and the blood supply to the other side from the portal vein is kept intact, then it is possible to perform radical resection. This provides a novel approach to the clinical resection of central liver tumors.