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

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

spontaneous vasospasm 10 days after sympathectomy

We have observed spontaneous vasospasm in the hands on emotional disturbances within ten days after sympathectomy, but no clinical evidence of this in the feet. I believe that sensitization of the denervated smooth muscle in the digital arterioles to adrenine is a better explanation of this phenomenon than local sensitivity to cold (Lewis, 1930), incomplete sympathectomy (Adson, and Leriche and Fontaine, 1933), or the common argument that Raynaud's disease is moresevere in the hands than in the feet.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE
AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR CLINICAL INVESTIGATION
HELD IN ATLANTIC CITY, N. J., MAY 6, 1935