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

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Effects of sympathectomy on skin and muscle microcirculation during dorsal column stimulation

A cold test with monitoring of cold-induced changes in peripheral blood flow was used to assess the completeness of the sympathectomy. The preoperative cold test induced a reciprocal response, vasoconstriction in the skin and vasodilation in muscle. DCS with clinical parameters did not produce this reciprocity in the control and sham-operated rats, but induced a vasodilation in both skin and muscle. After complete sympathectomy, defined as postoperative disappearance of the vasomotor responses to cold, the vasodilation in skin and muscle in response to DCS was abolished; however, the vasodilatory response to high-intensity stimulation (approximately 10 times the motor threshold) was not affected. Incomplete sympathetic denervation in some animals resulted in partial preservation of a vasodilatory response to DCS.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1758600