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

Monday, January 21, 2008

Sympathectomy = Autonomic peripheral neuropathy

DrRoy Freeman MBChB
aCenter for Autonomic and Peripheral Nerve Disorders, Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA

Available online 5 April 2005.

Summary

The autonomic neuropathies are a group of disorders in which the small, lightly myelinated and unmyelinated autonomic nerve fibres are selectively targeted. Autonomic features, which involve the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, urogenital, sudomotor, and pupillomotor systems, occur in varying combination in these disorders. Diabetes is the most common cause of autonomic neuropathy in more developed countries. Autonomic neuropathies can also occur as a result of amyloid deposition, after acute infection, as part of a paraneoplastic syndrome, and after exposure to neurotoxins including therapeutic drugs.

Mia: and it can occur as a result of surgical or chemical sympathectomy.