A new technical aspect of ultrasound guided liver surgery

Nowadays, resective hepatic surgery should be considered an echo-guided sur gical procedure to guarantee that effective anatomical resection is accompl ished. We describe a simple and original technique guided by intraoperative ultrasonography (IOUS), called the hooking technique, that enables the lig ation sites of the intrahepatic vessels during systematic segmentectomy to be chosen precisely. Together with other IOUS-guided techniques described p reviously, the hooking technique provides a further guarantee for the succe ssful execution of anatomical and radical liver resection. (C) 1999 by Exce rpta Medica, Inc.