[Surgical risk in patients with liver disease]

The author draws attention on the importance surgical risk analysis from patient's safety point of view. Recently the development in quality assurance affected surgical practice as well, hence determination and evaluation of surgical risk are more exactly defined. This resulted in a significant decrease in mortality during surgical interventions on the liver despite a wider indication and increased numbers, recently. Importantly, surgical risk is much higher in patients with liver disease compared to patients with normal liver. The risk of surgical interventions for liver diseases (HCC, tumor) in patients with diffuse liver diseases (cirrhosis, chronic hepatitis, ALD) can be expressed numerically. For many years the Child-Turcotte-Pugh stadium could have been determined by using actual laboratory values. Recently the "50-50 rule" or more frequently the MELD score -- originally used in the practice of liver transplantation -- mean objective expression of surgical risk. Treatment optimalisation can reduce surgical risk, selected on the basis of risk analysis in multidisciplinary settings, which focus on the need of liver surgeons.