Objective To comparie of the safety and postoperative rehabilitation effect of laparoscopic and open hepatectomy for liver cancer.Methods The complete clinical data of 66 patients with liver cancer who received surgical treatment in the department of General Surgery of the First Affiliated Hospital of USTC,Division of Life Sciences and Medicine,University of Science and Technology of China,from January to June 2023 were selected for retrospective anal-ysis,and they were divided into open surgery group(n=29)and laparoscopic surgery group(n=37)according to dif-ferent surgical methods.The perioperative related indicators of the two groups were compared,including operation time,blood loss during surgery,blood transfusion during surgery,incision length,hepatic portal block time,Alanine amin-otransferase(ALT),Aspartate aminotransferase(AST),Total bilirubin(TBIL),complication rate,postoperative ambula-tion time,first eating time after surgery,days of hospital stay after surgery,hospitalization expenses.Results The blood loss during surgery in laparoscopic group was(134.86±28.64)mL,which was lower than(283.10±90.28)mL in open group(t=9.41,P<0.05).The operation time in laparoscopic group was(124.30±20.42)min,which was shor-ter than(176.20±17.40)min than that in open group(t=10.93,P<0.05).The incision length,ALT and AST on the third day after operation were(5.92±1.50)cm,(248.35±44.76)U/L and(244.68±55.62)U/L,which were shorter or lower or quicker than(17.59±2.29)cm,(306.48±38.81)U/L and(292.76±58.92)U/L those in open surgery group(t=24.94,t=5.54,t=3.40;P<0.05).The incidence of surgical complications in laparoscopic group(13.5%)was lower than that(41.3%)in open group(x2=6.60,P<0.05).The time to stand besides bed after sur-gery,the time to eat or drink for the first time after surgery,the time to stay in hospital after operation and the hospitali-zation expenses of treatment in laparoscopic group were(1.49±0.51)d,(1.59±0.55)d,(7.59±1.62)d and(28889.96±6 471.64)yuan,which were earlier or lower than(2.48±0.51)d,(2.97±0.63)d,(11.66±1.90)d and(33 381.73±11 494.97)yuan in open group(t=7.92,t=9.45,t=9.37,2.01;P<0.05).Conclusions Laparo-scopic hepatectomy is safe in the treatment of liver cancer.The short-term recovery effect is better than open hepatecto-my.At the same time,it has less influence on postoperative liver function with more conducive to patients'postoperative rehabilitation.