ABSTRACT
I. BRIEF HISTORY Advances in laparoscopic abdominal surgery during the past decade have broadened its applications to include surgery of the liver. Most clinicallaparoscopic hepatic procedures have been limited to diagnostic procedures such as laparoscopic-guided liver biopsies and small hepatic wedge resections. Recently, therapeutic laparoscopic liver operations have been performed with reports of treatment of biliary cysts (excision, evacuation, or marsupialization), hydatid cysts, cavernous hemangioma, and wedge resections of small primary or metastatic neoplastic lesions. With the innovations of laparoscopic cavitron ultrasonic surgical aspirator (CUSA) (Valleylab, Boulder, CO) and argon beam coagulator (ABC) (ConMed, Utica, NY), formal laparoscopic hepatic segmentectomies and lobectomies have now become feasible.
