Pure Laparoscopic Versus Open Right Hepatectomy in Living Liver Donors: Graft Weight Discrepancy

BACKGROUND: Accurate volumetric evaluation of donors’ livers before surgery is crucial for successful living-donor liver transplantation. However, there are few studies on the volumetric evaluation in the recently popularized pure laparoscopic donor hepatectomy method, in contrast to the number of studies for conventional donor hepatectomy. We aimed to analyze the difference between estimated graft weight and actual graft weight in pure laparoscopic donor right hepatectomy (PLDRH) and conventional donor right hepatectomy (CDRH) procedures. MATERIAL/METHODS: The medical records of 612 donors who underwent right hepatectomy in living-donor liver transplantation between January 2014 and December 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. The CDRH group targeted patients from January 2014 to October 2015, and the PLDRH group targeted patients from March 2016 to December 2020. RESULTS: There were 119 and 376 donors who underwent CDRH and PLDRH, respectively. Although there was no significant difference in the estimated graft weights (P=0.994) and actual graft weights (P=0.489) between the groups, the estimated graft weights were significantly higher than the actual graft weights in both groups. However, the estimated graft weight and actual graft weight showed linear correlations in both the CDRH (r=0.81, P<0.001) and PLDRH (r=0.76, P<0.001) groups, with the CDRH group having greater linearity. CONCLUSIONS: The estimates of graft weight were similar between the 2 groups. However, since the actual graft weight tended to be smaller in the PLDRH group, this should be considered before surgery.