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, July 18, 2010

Sympathectomy at the T2 level would block the afferent projection negative feedback to the hypothalamus

Sympathectomy at the T2 level would block the afferent projection negative feedback to the hypothalamus, since it would section practically all afferent pathways, and would favor CH appearance at the periphery, due to the continuous efferent projections from the hypothalamus. Sympathectomy below this level would section a smaller number of afferent pathways, avoiding the feedback blockage and decreasing CH.

By understanding that CH is a result of a lack of negative feedback to the hypothalamus after sympathectomy, we found out that this side effect is more pronounced when sympathectomy is performed on the T2 ganglion, where there is greater convergence of afferent pathways to the hypothalamus. However, when the sympathectomy is more caudal, the adverse effect is less pronounced.

Jornal Brasileiro de Pneumologia

Print version ISSN 1806-3713

J. bras. pneumol. vol.34 no.11 São Paulo Nov. 2008



Direct hypothalamo-autonomic connections.

Brain Res. 1976 Nov 26;117(2):305-12. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/62600