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

Thursday, May 21, 2009

sympathectomy can itself trigger a painful syndrome

Finally, it should be noted that neuropathic, painful states are not invariably sympathetic dependent. Clinically, 'sympathetically maintained' and 'non-sympathetically maintained' states of pain can be differentiated, based on the fact that in some patients neuropathic pain can be relieved by sympathetic blocks. Furthermore, surgical sympathectomy can itself trigger a painful syndrome in some patients.
Pain medicine: the requisites in anesthesiology
By Stephen E. Abram
Edition: illustrated
Published by Elsevier Health Sciences, 2006