Fenestration in the management of polycystic liver disease.

Thirteen patients with symptomatic polycystic liver disease who were selected for fenestration were reviewed. The main preoperative complaints that related to polycystic liver disease were severe abdominal pain, respiratory distress, clinical ascites, or leg edema. All symptoms disappeared after operation, and the number and size of the cysts were smaller. Five patients developed transient but massive ascites during the postoperative period, and long-term follow-up demonstrated a moderate recurrence of hepatomegaly in two patients. These postoperative complications and failures appeared to be at least partly related to a more extensive evolution of the disease in the patients in whom it developed.