The review describes the role of adiponectin in liver diseases in the presence and absence of surgery reported in the literature in the last ten years. The most updated therapeutic strategies based on the regulation of adiponectin including pharmacological and surgical interventions and adiponectin knockout rodents, as well as some of the scientific controversies in this field, are described. Whether adiponectin could be a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of liver diseases and patients submitted to hepatic resection or liver transplantation are discussed. Furthermore, preclinical and clinical data on the mechanism of action of adiponectin in different liver diseases (nonalcoholic fatty disease, alcoholic liver disease, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma) in the absence or presence of surgery are evaluated in order to establish potential targets that might be useful for the treatment of liver disease as well as in the practice of liver surgery associated with the hepatic resections of tumors and liver transplantation.
Keywords: NAFLD; NASH; adiponectin; ischemia-reperfusion; liver transplantation; partial hepatectomy.