Is the TissueLink dissecting sealer a better liver resection device than clamp-crushing? A meta-analysis and system review.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Liver resection is the most effective treatment for selected patients with primary or metastatic hepatic tumor and many liver resection techniques have tried to minimize blood loss. The objective of the present study was to examine whether TissueLink dissection sealer (DS) was superior to clamp-crushing (CC) technique for liver transection or not. METHODOLOGY: MEDLINE, Pubmed, Ovid and Cochrane Library electronic databases were used to search for studies without language and time period restrictions. RESULTS: Four clinical trials with 276 patients were involved. We evaluated intraoperative blood loss, postoperative morbidity, postoperative biliary leakage, transfusion rate, operation time,hospital stay duration, postoperative mortality,transection time, blood loss in liver transection and pertran section area, transection speed, AST and TBIL and found no statistical differences between the DS and CC groups. Sensitive analysis showed transection time was longer in the former group. In addition, there was no apparent publication bias concerning intraoperative blood loss. CONCLUSIONS: In summary, we could not draw a firm conclusion that DS is superior to CC in liver resection of transection and the advantage of TissueLink dissecting sealer should be evaluated