Use of microwave scalpel in hepatectomy for hepatocellular carcinoma

Objective To study the clinical use of microwave scalpel in hepatectomy for hepatocellular carcinoma without hepatic vascular inflow occlusion. Methods A retrospective study was conducted on the clinical data of 126 consecutive patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who were treated at the Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University from December 2015 to August 2018. The patients included 111 males and 15 females, with ages which ranged from 25 to 75 years. These patients were divided into two groups by the different surgical resection methods: the microwave scalpel hepatectomy (MSH) group which employed microwave scalpels to perform hepatectomy (n=42), and the ultrasound scalpel hepatectomy (USH) group which employed ultrasound scalpels (n=84). The perioperative conditions which included baseline data, amount of intraoperative bleeding, liver function after operation, and morbidity of postoperative complications were compared. Results There were no significant differences in the preoperative indexes which included tumor diameter, number of tumors, levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) between the 2 groups (all P>0.05). In the MSH group, the amount of intraoperative bleeding was 100.0 (100.0, 200.0) ml, which was significantly lower than the 300.0 (100.0, 400.0) ml in the USH group (P<0.05). Compared with the USH group, the levels of AST and ALT on postoperative day 1, 3, 7 after operation in the MSH group were significantly lower (all P<0.05), and the corresponding albumin levels were significantly higher than the USH group (P<0.05). The incidence of complications was 4.8%(2/42) in the MSH group which was significantly lower than that of 20.2%(17/84) in the USH group (P<0.05). Conclusion Microwave scalpel significantly reduced intraoperative bleeding and postoperative complications, and led to less liver functional injury. Key words: Carcinoma, hepatocellular; Hepatectomy; Microwave scalpel; Ultrasound scalpel; Intraoperative bleeding; Liver function