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

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Perioperative Thermoregulation

Neuraxial (spinal and epidural) anesthesia also impairs central thermoregulatory control via mechanisms that remain unclear. Regional anesthesia also causes a sympathectomy that prevents lower-body vasoconstriction and paralysis that prevents lower-body shivering. Consequently, hypothermia during neuraxial anesthesia is as common, and nearly as serious, as during general anesthesia.
Daniel I. Sesler, M.D.
Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists.


http://www.anzca.edu.au/events/asm/asm2007/Sessler3.htm