Clinical Research and Perspectives in Hepatobiliary Surgery and Liver Transplant

Dear Colleagues,

Hepatobiliary surgery and liver transplantation are undergoing rapid transformation. The growing burden of primary and metastatic liver malignancies, advanced chronic liver disease, older and more complex patients and persistent organ scarcity are reshaping clinical decision-making. At the same time, minimally invasive and robotic surgery, intraoperative imaging, precision oncology, advanced organ preservation, machine perfusion and the broader use of extended-criteria and donation-after-circulatory-death grafts are expanding therapeutic possibilities.

These developments increasingly connect hepatobiliary surgery and liver transplantation within a shared clinical pathway. Treatment selection now requires the multidisciplinary assessment of technical resectability, tumor biology, liver function, donor and graft characteristics, perioperative risk, resource use and patient-centered outcomes. Robust clinical evidence is therefore needed to determine which innovations improve survival, reduce complications, preserve quality of life and can be implemented safely across different healthcare settings.

This Special Issue aims to present and disseminate recent clinical and translational advances in hepatobiliary surgery and liver transplantation, with particular emphasis on their impact on patient selection, operative strategy, perioperative management and short- and long-term outcomes. We invite original clinical studies, randomized and non-randomized trials, prospective or retrospective cohort studies, registry analyses, systematic reviews, meta-analyses and clinically focused narrative reviews. Technical or translational studies are also welcome when they demonstrate a clear pathway toward clinical application.

Topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Precision, minimally invasive, laparoscopic and robotic hepatobiliary surgery;
• Intraoperative imaging, navigation, artificial intelligence, radiomics and digital surgery;
• Surgical management of hepatocellular carcinoma, cholangiocarcinoma, gallbladder cancer and liver metastases;
• Parenchymal-sparing strategies, complex liver resection, vascular reconstruction and staged procedures;
• Transplant oncology and evolving indications for liver transplantation;
• Candidate selection, allocation, waitlist management and organ-access equity;
• Donation after circulatory death, extended-criteria donors, living donation and split-liver transplantation;
• Static and dynamic organ preservation, machine perfusion and graft viability assessment;
• Perioperative pathways, enhanced recovery, critical care, frailty, nutrition and rehabilitation;
• Immunosuppression, rejection, infection, recurrence and precision follow-up;
• Biliary and vascular complications and their multidisciplinary management;
• Short- and long-term outcomes, patient-reported outcomes, quality of life and implementation research.

Dr. Marco Maria Pascale
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• hepatobiliary surgery
• liver transplantation
• hepatopancreatobiliary surgery
• transplant oncology
• machine perfusion
• organ preservation
• donation after circulatory death
• extended-criteria donors
• living donor liver transplantation
• minimally invasive surgery
• robotic surgery
• hepatocellular carcinoma
• cholangiocarcinoma
• colorectal liver metastases
• perioperative outcomes
• patient-reported outcomes
• precision medicine