<p>This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.</p> <p>Thirteen pigs underwent resection of the left liver lobe. By random selection, the animals were resected
either with the aid of an RLG 90<sup>R</sup> linear stapling device or by the conventional finger-fracture technique.
There was one postoperative death due to anaesthetic complications. The median operative time using
the stapler was 27 min (range 19–40 min) which was significantly shorter (<italic>p</italic> = 0.0065) than that required for resection by the finger-fracture technique (42.5 min; range 37–55 min).</p> <p>The median blood loss, estimated by counting the number of gauze swabs used, was 425 ml and 275 ml
for the finger-fracture resected and stapler resected groups, respectively (ranges 275–550 ml versus 175–
300 ml; <italic>p</italic> = 0.015).</p> <p>The animals were sacrificed and examined one week after the operative procedure. Except for a small
bile pseudo-cyst in one pig operated upon with conventional resection, no sign of bleeding or biliary
leakage was revealed.</p> <p>This study demonstrates the feasibility of stapling the liver to facilitate resection.</p>
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HPB Surg. 1992; 6(1):51-55