Assessment of liver function for safe hepatic resection

The preoperative assessment of liver function is extremely important for preventing postoperative liver failure and mortality after hepatic resection. Liver function tests may be divided into three types; conventional liver function tests, general scores, and quantitative liver function tests. General scores are based on selected clinical symptoms and conventional test results. Child-Turcotte-Pugh score has been the gold standard for four decades, but the Child-Turcotte-Pugh score has difficulty discriminating a good risk from a poor risk in patients with mild to moderate liver dysfunction. The model for end-stage liver disease score has also been applied to predict short-term outcome after hepatectomy, but it is only useful in patients with advanced cirrhosis. Quantitative liver function tests overcome the drawbacks of general scores. The indocyanine green retention rate at 15 minutes (ICG R15) has been reported to be a significant predictor of postoperative liver failure and mortality. The safety limit of the hepatic parenchymal resection rate can be estimated using the ICG R15, and a decision tree (known as the Makuuchi criteria) for selecting patients and hepatectomy procedures has been proposed. Hepatic resection can be performed with a mortality rate of nearly zero using this decision tree. If the future remnant liver volume does not fulfill the Makuuchi criteria, preoperative portal vein embolization should be performed to prevent postoperative liver failure. Galactosyl human serum albumin-diethylenetriamine-pentaacetic acid scintigraphy also provides data that complement the ICG test. Other quantitative liver function tests, however, require further validation and simplification.