Vascular Control in Major Hepatic Resections

Liver surgery for metastatic colorectal cancer has become one of the most sophisticated and specialized areas in modern visceral surgery. Exact knowledge of the normal liver anatomy and its variants is necessary in order to carefully plan one- or two-staged liver resections and to perform the correct techniques of parenchymal transections and vascular control for each individual case. Although vascular control and/or vascular reconstruction is not required for every liver resection, a profound knowledge of vascular control is required for the modern liver surgeon. Intraoperative blood loss remains one of the major risk factors for postoperative morbidity and mortality, and therefore vascular control plays a major role in performing safe liver resection for colorectal liver metastases.