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

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Loosing Nerves - article in Time Magazine, 1947

Sympathectomy, cutting of the sympathetic nerves, is causing the most violent arguments of all. The operation is now prescribed for a wide variety of ailments, from excessive sweating to high blood pressure. Nobody knows how many thousands of sympathectomies surgeons perform each year; there are an estimated 1,000 in Manhattan alone. Admittedly the operation is a life-saver in many cases of gangrene, angina pectoris, hypertension. But some sympathectomies may make men sterile. And because a sympathectomy reduces pain, some doctors consider it insidiously dangerous, e.g., a patient could have a perforating ulcer without pain. The experts agree that sympathectomy, like the other nerve-cutting operations, is getting out of hand. 

Jun. 30, 1947
Loosing Nerves, article in TIME MAGAZINE