Comparison of efficacy and safety of laparoscopic and open enucleation for liver hemangioma in the right hemi liver: a retrospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Open enucleation (OE) is often performed for giant liver hemangioma (LH) because of its advantage in maximum preservation of functional liver parenchyma. Laparoscopic enucleation (LE) has been applied to LHs more frequently for its potential advantages in postoperative recovery and blood loss. However, to date, LE is still a difficult and complex surgical technique especially when the hemangioma is located in the right hemi liver. The aim of this study was to analyze whether LE is superior to OE for LH in the right hemi liver. METHODS: Demographics and perioperative data of patients who underwent LE or OE for LH in the right hemi liver between May 2013 and July 2020 were collected. To decrease the selection bias, patients who underwent OE in first 2 years and those underwent LE in next 5 years by a same operation team were included. The data of sex, age, body mass index (BMI), American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score, largest tumor size, and removed tumor number were enrolled in the propensity score matching (PSM) method to compensate for differences in the baseline characteristics between LE and OE groups. The perioperative outcomes were compared between 2 matched groups after PSM method. RESULTS: A total of 110 patients (36 LE vs. 74 OE) were matched by age, sex, BMI, ASA grade score, largest tumor size, removed tumor number and tumor location. Finally, 34 patients in each group were retained after PSM. There were no significant differences in operative time, estimated blood loss, amount of autologous transfusion, morbidity grade and the levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) on postoperative day 1 or 3 or 5. LE was associated with a significantly higher rate of use of the Pringle maneuver (P<0.001), shorter time to oral feeding (P<0.001) and shorter postoperative length of stay (P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: For LHs in the right hemi liver, the perioperative safety of LE is not inferior to OE, and LE seems to achieves a faster recovery from surgery compared with OE.