Current status and future perspective of laparoscopic surgery in hepatobiliary disease.

Recent advances in minimally invasive surgery include laparoscopic and robotic surgery. These surgical techniques have changed the paradigm of surgical treatment for hepatobiliary diseases. Minimally invasive surgery has the advantages of minimal wound extension for cosmetic effect, early postoperative recovery, and few postoperative complications in patients. For laparoscopic liver resection, the indications have been expanded and oncological outcome was proven to be similar with open surgery in the malignant disease. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is a classical operation for benign gallbladder diseases and the effort to decrease the surgical wound resulted to perform single incision laparoscopic cholecystectomy. For choledochal cyst, laparoscopic surgery is applied gradually despite of the difficulties associated with anastomosis, and robotic surgery for hepatobiliary disease is also performed for more minimally invasive surgery; however, while admitting the advantage of robotic surgery, robotic technology should be improved for development of more convenient and cheaper instrument and continuous efforts to enhance surgical technique to overcome long operation is necessary. In this review, the status and future perspectives of minimally invasive surgery for hepatobiliary diseases are summarized and discussed.