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, June 9, 2008

THE EFFECT OF SYMPATHECTOMY ON THE FATTY DEPOSIT IN CONNECTIVE TISSUE

A. B. L. Beznák 1 and Z. Hasch 1

1 The Institute of Experimental Pathology, University of Budapest

1. Unilateral section of both splanchnic nerves in cats diminishes the degree of fall in the amount of perirenal fat which follows laparotomy under ether anæsthesia. On the splanchnicotomised side the perirenal fat weighs 100-300 per cent. more than on the intact side.

2. The same difference is found if the cats starve after splanchnicotomy, or if cats with very little perirenal fat are fattened after the splanchnicotomy.

3. When cats are fed with a diet containing fat stained with Sudan III. the stained fat is deposited in the perirenal fat on both sides in equal concentrations. When they are starved after unilateral splanchnicotomy, the amount of the perirenal fatty tissue on the ipsilateral side is greater than on the normal. The concentration of Sudan III., however, remains on both sides the same as it was previous to the splanchnicotomy and starvation.

4. If cats and rats are kept on normal unstained diets for various periods after unilateral splanchnicotomy, are then fed with a diet containing fat stained with Sudan III. and are killed 18 hours after the feeding, the concentration of Sudan III. on the splanchnicotomised side is about of that on the normal side.

5. The conclusion is reached that, in consequence of the splanchnicotomy, changes take place in the perirenal connective tissue which slow both the deposition of fat and its mobilisation. The mobilisation is retarded more than the deposition.