Poor prognoses following left hepatic trisegmentectomies for cancer

Five patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, and one with a gallbladder cancer with liver metastases, underwent left hepatic trisegmentectomy with, in four cases, resection of the left caudate lobe. A bleeding peptic ulcer and an anaphylactic shock due to a drug allergy caused two hospital deaths. A third major complication was a prolonged bile leakage which healed spontaneously. One patient who died in hospital had not undergone a radical resection, and all four patients surviving the procedure eventually died with recurrent local (and sometimes also distant) tumors between 3.5 and 11 months after resection. The results appear to give relatively few indications for left trisegmentectomy in the treatment of these tumors.