Role of intraoperative ultrasonography in hepatic surgery: a preliminary report

Twenty-four patients who underwent ultrasonography during hepatic surgery in the 22 months from October 1989 to July 1991 were studied prospectively to determine the value, if any, of intraoperative ultrasonography. For 6 (25%) of the 24 patients the operative plan was altered because of the ultrasonographic findings. In one of them resection was extended from a left lateral segmentectomy or sectorectomy to a left hemihepatectomy. In the other five patients the planned liver procedure was abandoned. Two of these five patients were cirrhotic--in one of them an additional metastasis was seen, and in the other there was tumour invasion of the portal vein. Of the three noncirrhotic patients, one had tumour invasion of the right hepatic vein, and the other two patients had additional metastases in the caudate lobe (Couinaud segment 1). Ultrasonography was found to be useful in 25% of patients who underwent this investigation during hepatic surgery--it avoided liver resections that would have failed because of advanced malignant disease.