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

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Severe bronchospasm after sympathectomy

Does bilateral thoracic sympathectomy predispose to reflex bronchospasm following tracheal intubation?

Ahed Zeidan, MD*, Nazih Nahle, MD* and Anis Baraka, MD FRCA{dagger}

* Sahel General Hospital,
{dagger} American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon,

To the Editor:

Thoracic endoscopic sympathectomy has become the technique of choice for treating intractable essential hyperhidrosis.1 We report severe bronchospasm following tracheal intubation in a patient with a previous history of bilateral thoracic sympathectomy.

 Canadian Journal of Anesthesia 52:997-998 (2005)
© Canadian Anesthesiologists' Society, 2005