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

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

marked athropy of the extremity, etc

Contraindications to the use of sympathectomy
are marked atrophy of the extremity with loss of
subcutaneous tissues and consequent diminution in
the available vascular bed, constant intractable pain
uninfluenced by sympathetic block, the rapid onset
of symptoms and a rapidly progressive vascular lesion.
BLOOD VESSELS AND VASCULAR
DISEASE
Blain, A., III, and Campbell, K. N.: Lumbar Sympa-
thectomy for Arteriosclerosis Obliterans. Surgery
25: 950 (June), 1949.