Parenchyma-Sparing Liver Resection or Regenerative Liver Surgery: Which Way to Go?

Liver resection for malignant tumors should respect oncological margins while ensuring safety and improving the quality of life, therefore tumor staging, underlying liver disease and performance status should all be attentively assessed in the decision process. The concept of parenchyma-sparing liver surgery is nowadays used as an alternative to major hepatectomies to address deeply located lesions with intricate topography by means of complex multiplanar parenchyma-sparing liver resections, preferably under the guidance of intraoperative ultrasound. Regenerative liver surgery evolved as a liver growth induction method to increase resectability by stimulating the hypertrophy of the parenchyma intended to remain after resection (referred to as future liver remnant), achievable by portal vein embolization and liver venous deprivation as interventional approaches, and portal vein ligation and associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy as surgical techniques. Interestingly, although both strategies have the same conceptual origin, they eventually became caught in the never-ending parenchyma-sparing liver surgery vs. regenerative liver surgery debate. However, these strategies are both valid and must both be mastered and used to increase resectability. In our opinion, we consider parenchyma-sparing liver surgery along with techniques of complex liver resection and intraoperative ultrasound guidance the preferred strategy to treat liver tumors. In addition, liver volume-manipulating regenerative surgery should be employed when resectability needs to be extended beyond the possibilities of parenchyma-sparing liver surgery.