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, January 11, 2009

Effect of cervical vagosympathectomy on myocardial catecholamine concentration

Dogs which survived a bilateral cervical vagosympathectomy showed a striking reduction in catecholamine concentration of right atrial tissue. Significant decreases in catecholamine concentration were noted also in the tissues of both ventricles and the interventricular septum. Unilateral cervical vagosympathectomy, either right or left, was not followed by a statistically significant decrease in the concentration of cardiac catecholamines. The cause of the depletion after bilateral cervical vagosympathectomy is not clear. It may be due to destruction of intracardiac adrenergic nerves or a relatively increased utilization of catecholamines, which exceeds the capacity of the cardiac tissues to synthesize, take up, or bind these substances.
Am J Physiol 209: 951-954, 1965;