Laparoscopic
hepatectomy (LH) has been accepted widely owing to its advantages as a
minimally invasive surgery; however, laparoscopic right hemihepatectomy (LRH) has rarely been reported. We aimed to compare the benefits and drawbacks of LRH and open approaches. Between January 2014 and October 2017, 85 patients with
tumor and hepatolithiasis who underwent LRH (n = 30) and open right hemihepatectomy (ORH) (n = 55) were enrolled in this study. For
tumors, LRH showed significantly better results with respect to blood loss (P = 0.024) and duration of
hospital stay (P = 0.008) than ORH, while hospital expenses (P = 0.031) and bile leakage rate (P = 0.012) were higher with LRH. However, the
operative time and rate of other complications were not significantly different between the two groups. However, for hepatolithiasis, there was less blood loss (P = 0.015) and longer
operative time (P = 0.036) with LRH than with ORH. There were no significant difference between LRH and ORH in terms of
hospital stay, hospital expenses, and complication rate (P > 0.05). Moreover, the postoperative white blood cell count,
alanine aminotransferase level,
aspartate aminotransferase level, and total
bilirubin were not significantly different in both types of patients (P > 0.05). Our results suggest the safety and feasibility of laparoscopy technology for right hemihepatectomy in both
tumor and hepatolithiasis patients.