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, April 22, 2008

Review

A 2003 systematic review [1] looked at sympathectomy for facial blushing and the authors concluded:

We did not identify any controlled trials or cohort studies. The evidence about effectiveness, based on three case series, was therefore very limited. The main weakness of these studies was their lack of a comparison group and their resulting inability to exclude a placebo response to surgery. In addition, the methods of assessing outcome were poorly described and not validated, and the range of outcomes assessed was limited. The studies provided very limited evidence that sympathectomy improves blushing. Side effects were common.


A 2007 systematic review [2] of endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy for excessive sweating and facial blushing concluded:

The evidence of the effectiveness of ETS is weak due to a lack of randomized trials. The intervention leads to severe immediate complications in some of the patients, and to persistent side-effects for many of the patients.

http://www.clinicalanswers.nhs.uk/index.cfm?question=6881