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, May 30, 2009

the lack of uniform outcome measures makes these data difficult to interpret

The great majority of the currently available evidence supporting sympathectomy for primary hyperhidrosis is observational, coming from a variety of prospective and restrospective clinical series as well as comparative studies.
Thorac Surg Clin. 2008 May;18(2):209-16.Links

Evidence-based review of the surgical management of hyperhidrosis.