[Liver ressection in elderly patients].

INTRODUCTION: Life expectancy of the population has increased in recent years as a result of human development, leading to an increase in the incidence of primary and secondary neoplasms of the liver. Medicine has been following this process, but there is still fear of aggressive surgical treatment in elderly patients, especially concerning to liver surgery.

AIM: To analyze the influence of age on the morbidity and mortality of patients undergoing liver resection.

METHOD: Literature review of scientific articles available in PubMed, Scielo and Bireme database with "elderly", "hepatectomy," "hepatic resection," "postoperative complications", "morbidity", "mortality". It was selected studies that compared the results of hepatectomy between groups of young and elderly patients.

CONCLUSION: Age is not a predisposing factor for the worsening of results in liver resection.