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According to the National Cancer Institute’s statistics, 13,600 new cases of malignant tumors of the liver and biliary passages were expected to occur in 1986 in the United States.4 The optimal treatment for malignant liver tumors is partial or subtotal resection of the liver. These days resection can be done with a low mortality.12 The resectability rates reported vary from 5 per cent to 30 per cent in different series.8 Conceptually, total hepatectomy followed by orthotopic liver transplantation would be the only possible surgical method of cure if the tumor was too extensive to be resected without a total hepatectomy while still being confined solely to the liver. The same situation applies if a conventional resection was to be precluded by coexisting cirrhosis.