Post-hepatectomy liver failure
The liver can regrow after an operation to remove part of it.
How much can be removed depends on the state of the liver. Someone who has liver disease may have a smaller portion removed.
Where this came from
What is a liver resection?, p.2 · status: current, verified 2026-09-01
Open
You can survive with up to 75% of your liver removed. If you have liver disease, you may have a smaller portion removed.
UK specialist centres do not all give the same figure for how much of the liver can be removed. One says up to 75%. Another says the body can cope with removal of up to two-thirds. Neither is wrong: the safe amount depends on the individual liver.
Where this came from
What is a liver resection?, p.2 · status: current, verified 2026-09-01
Open
You can survive with up to 75% of your liver removed.
What is liver resection?, p.4 · status: current, verified 2026-09-01
Open
The body can cope with removal of up to two-thirds of the liver. The liver also has the ability to grow back.
Sources differ. Two UK specialist centres, two patient leaflets, two different fractions: NHS Tayside says 75%, Oxford University Hospitals says up to two-thirds. Neither is wrong for its own patients - the safe fraction depends on the individual liver, which is the point CLM-LRS-0002 makes. This platform states the divergence rather than choosing a number, and states no fraction as a general fact. A third leaflet (Plymouth) gave up to three-quarters but its URL now 404s and it is not cited.
Related
- Extracorporeal liver support — is treated with
- Liver resection — can be caused by
- Liver transplantation — is treated with
- ISGLS PHLF grading — is classified by
- Acute liver failure — related through liver transplantation
- UKELD — related through liver transplantation
What we have not established
Relationships involving Post-hepatectomy liver failure that we have not evidenced are listed, never drawn — a line would read as a weak relationship, which is a different and false claim.
- Post-hepatectomy liver failure → ISGLS PHLF grading — not established
- Liver resection → Post-hepatectomy liver failure — not established
- Liver regeneration → Post-hepatectomy liver failure — not established
Evidence search date: 2026-09-01
Content reviewed and approved
What we have not established here
Known gaps on this concept:
THE 'EXTRACORPOREAL LIVER SUPPORT' PHRASE IN GRADE C IS NOT RESOLVED. Phase 17 acquired the UK and European positions on liver support devices and found they all concern acute or acute-on-chronic liver failure - three different populations from post-hepatectomy liver failure - and that nothing establishes what ISGLS meant by the phrase. The pointer is left open and labelled rather than closed by inference.
NO RESECTION ELIGIBILITY. This page does not say who can have liver surgery, and that is deliberate. The acquired corpus states the functional-remnant principle and cannot state the practice: every source says 'adequate remnant' and none gives a volume threshold, portal vein embolisation is absent entirely, and functional assessment beyond Child-Pugh is unheld. A page repeating 'adequate remnant' three times would look authoritative and tell a reader nothing.
THE BSG AND EASL RESECTION RECOMMENDATIONS ARE VERIFIED AND NOT PUBLISHED. The BSG line that resection is first-line for solitary HCC 'of any size' when liver function is maintained must never appear without the EASL recommendation that clinically significant portal hypertension with Child-Pugh B is an absolute contraindication to resection of more than two segments, and without the paired EASL recommendation that the same combination is NOT an absolute contraindication to limited minimally invasive resection. Publishing any one of those three alone states a different rule than the guidelines do.
The ISGLS enumerated criteria tables are not held. The definition, the cut-off rule, the exclusion and the three grades are; the full criterion lists behind grades B and C are not, and grade assignment therefore cannot be performed from this page.
No plain-language account of what post-hepatectomy liver failure feels like or how it is treated. The plain layer here covers only liver regrowth and what it depends on.
A University Hospitals Plymouth leaflet stated directly that where the liver is severely damaged by cirrhosis it may not be safe to have surgery. Its URL now returns HTTP 404, so it could not be re-verified and nothing rests on it.
No research resolution.
What has changed here
2026-09-01 — Concept created at plain, clinical and specialist resolutions - the platform's first concept to offer specialist depth.
Phase 16. Post-hepatectomy liver failure is this platform's own subject arriving through the operating theatre: liver failure caused by treatment, in a patient selected as fit for it. The ISGLS definition was cited in the ledger and unread since Phase 1; reading it required eight access routes, seven of which failed.