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, January 17, 2009

Left, but not right, one-lung ventilation causes hypoxemia during endoscopic transthoracic sympathectomy

Endoscopic transthoracic sympathectomy was
performed under general anesthesia, using a double-lumen endobronchial
tube, after induction of artificial pneumothorax plus insufflation of CO2 into
the operated chest. Via radial artery cannulae, one to three arterial blood
gas samples were taken during two-lung ventilation before surgery, at each
one-lung ventilation, in most cases during the period of two-lung ventilation
when switching between the operated sides, and after surgery.
Left-lung ventilation and right-chest operation caused profound decrease of arterial oxygen partial
pressure (PaO2), compared with two-lung ventilation.


J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth. 1996 Feb;10(2):207-9.