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 25, 2009

Shivering - a normal response during fever is eliminated by sympathectomy

During fever pyrogen is released from leucocytes and this agent causes the disturbed thermoregualtion (Atkins, 1960). For this response to occur, an intact efferent sympathetic system is required because fever can be markedly reduced by bilateral sympathectomy in the cat (Pinkston, 1935). In man, pyrogen seems to act above the level of the 5th cervical spinal cord segment; for a patient with a lesion at that level the intravennours administration of pyrogen produced shivering in normally innervated muscles only and no alteration in hand blood flow was seen (Cooper at al., 1964)

The Autonomic Nervous System: An Introduction to Basic and Clinical Concepts
By Otto Appenzeller, Emilio Oribe
Edition: 5, illustrated
Published by Elsevier Health Sciences, 1997
ISBN 0444827617, 9780444827616