[Conservative therapy of liver injuries in children]

During the 14-year period between 1979 and 1992 the authors treated by conservative methods nine children with liver injuries. They operated on four children. The liver injury did not bleed during operation or haemorrhage was only minimal and probably the patients would have also recovered after conservative treatment. In the discussion the authors mention diagnostic approaches in liver injuries and criteria and methods of conservative treatment. The authors consider conservative treatment of liver injuries in children to be a very suitable method which is associated only with a very small number of complications, and which proves successful in the majority of patients. The prerequisite for its application are high standard of diagnostic visualization methods, monitoring of the child's condition and the possibility of immediate surgery, if conservative treatment fails.