BACKGROUND:The objective of this article is to review the literature and discuss the various tools used in hepatobiliary surgery for the measurement of health related quality of life (HR-QOL) and highlight various outcome variables that affect the HR-QOL among patients with common hepatobiliary disorders. DATA SOURCES:We reviewed HR-QOL articles published in the last 20 years on different hepatobiliary curative or palliative procedures in all languages. RESULTS:HR-QOL is a questionnaire tool which is utilized to assess the changes in the health status of patients after a hepatobiliary intervention. These surveys are of increasingly importance, as health care providers are challenged to justify treatment approaches and rationale for any surgical intervention. These HR-QOL tools are very helpful for the evaluation of subjective outcome of common hepatobiliary procedures like gastrointestinal quality of life index (GIQLI) for cholecystectomy, functional assessment in cancer therapy (FACT) for liver resection, short form 36 (SF-36) for liver transplantation, and quality of life questionnaire for patients with pancreatic cancer (QLQ-PAN). CONCLUSIONS:Use of validated and reliable health instruments in hepatobiliary surgery is directed at measuring the impact in a reproducible and valid fashion. Curative or palliative procedures should be offered to the patients of hepatobiliary disorders after the assessment by HR-QOL tools. Because the impairments of function that may occur after different operations vary considerably, an operation-speciifc assessment of HR-QOL for each type of surgical procedure is becoming an essential principle to follow in a successful healthcare system.