The amount of compensatory sweating depends on the patient, the damage that the white rami communicans incurs, and the amount of cell body reorganization in the spinal cord after surgery.
Other potential complications include inadequate resection of the ganglia, gustatory sweating, pneumothorax, cardiac dysfunction, post-operative pain, and finally Horner’s syndrome secondary to resection of the stellate ganglion.
www.ubcmj.com/pdf/ubcmj_2_1_2010_24-29.pdf

After severing the cervical sympathetic trunk, the cells of the cervical sympathetic ganglion undergo transneuronic degeneration
After severing the sympathetic trunk, the cells of its origin undergo complete disintegration within a year.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1439-0442.1967.tb00255.x/abstract

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Orthostatic hypotension after surgery, high mortality

A splanchnic nerve lumbar sympathectomy was a surgical gamble used in about
10% of patients with advanced hypertension. Dramatic benefit was occasionally produced
at the cost of 0.5%–8.8% mortality, impotence and unpleasant orthostatic hypotension (3).


A view from the millennium: the
practice of cardiology circa 1950
and thereafter
Mark E. Silverman, MD, FACCa

Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine,
Emory University School of Medicine and Chief of
Cardiology, Piedmont Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia,
USA
Manuscript received August 28, 1998; revised
manuscript received November 24, 1998, accepted
January 5, 1999.