Many recent reports have described the efficacy and safety of pure laparoscopic donor hepatectomy (PLDH). Here we investigated the extent to which this technique could reduce patients’ experienced pain.
Among donor left hepatectomy procedures performed between July 2011 and November 2022, we retrospectively analyzed 20 open donor hepatectomy (ODH), 20 laparoscopy-assisted donor hepatectomy (LADH), and 5 PLDH cases. We compared these 3 procedures regarding the total amount of postoperative analgesic use (narcotics and non-narcotics) and the first date when the donor was completely pain-free, as evaluated by the patients using a pain scale.
Total postoperative fentanyl use did not significantly differ among the 3 procedures: median (range), ODH, 0.5 mg (0-2 mg); LADH 1.2 mg (0-7 mg); PLDH, 0.5 mg (0-3.5; P = .172). The percentage of patients who completely discontinued analgesics on postoperative day (POD) 5 was significantly higher for PLDH (80%) than for ODH (35%) or LADH (20%) (P = .041). The day when 50% of donors were completely pain-free on a pain scale was POD9 for ODH, POD11 for LADH, and POD5 for PLDH, significantly shorter in the PLDH group (P = .004).
At our institution, we found that PLDH was a useful technique for postoperative pain management compared with PDH and LADH. Our results suggest that PLDH effectively reduces the duration of postoperative analgesia use. Further studies are warranted as the number of PLDH cases gradually increases.

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