To analyze the recent research of laparoscopic liver resection under the concept of minimally invasion.

The relevant literature was searched using Chinese and English key words "laparoscopy" , "robot" , "liver resection" and "hepatectomy" in Medline (Ovid), PubMed, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) data base in the Digital Library of Sichuan University with the assistance of retrospective literature, manual retrieval. Twenty-eight papers about research on laparoscopic liver resection from January 1990 to December 2011 at home and abroad were searched out. The clinical research content of laparoscopic liver resection included perioperative general information (the average operative blood loss, transfusion rate, surgical conversion rate, average length of operation, average length of hospital stay, incidence of complications, mortality), minimally invasive procedures and liver resection procedures. The publication time distribution, publication nation distribution, clinical studies of literature about laparoscopic liver resection research were analyzed using the software Excel.

According to the publication time of literature about laparoscopic liver resection research, 3804 cases were reported from 2003 to 2011. From 2003 to 2005, among 50 to 100 cases were reported each year, and the number began to grow from 2006 to 2011. From 2009 to 2011, the literature published by Chinese, Japanese and Korean researchers accounted for 50.45% (1018/2018) of the world′s in that period. By December 2011, laparoscopic liver resection cases reported in our country accounted for 20.04% (618/3084), which was next to America [28.31%(873/3084)]. The average operative blood loss was 58-700 ml. The transfusion rate was 0%-25.25%. There were 151 cases converted to laparotomy with a conversion rate of 4.90% (151/3084) during the operation. The conversion mostly occurred in the early period when such operations were launched. The average length of operation was 75.0-279.8 min. The average length of hospital stay was 1.9-17.0 d. The incidence of complications was 11.25% (347/3084). The perioperative mortality was 0.39% (12/3084). In the 28 papers reported, 2361 cases underwent single laparoscopic liver resection, 541 cases underwent hand-assisted laparoscopic liver resection, 97 cases underwent laparoscopic-assisted liver resection and 85 cases underwent robotic-assisted laparoscopic liver resection. About 80% left lateral lobectomies were performed by laparoscopy, while only 18% left hemihepatectomies and 11% right hemihepatectomies were performed by laparoscopy. A total of 18 caudate lobectomies were reported from 2006 to 2008, and only 8 cases were reported from 2009 to 2011.

Laparoscopic liver resection under the concept of minimally invasion has gradually been widely applied in clinic around the world especially in Asian region. Compared with the traditional open liver resection, laparoscopic liver resection possesses advantages of less intraoperative blood loss, shorter length of hospital stay, lower incidence of complications and mortality. It is a safe and feasible surgical procedure.