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, August 25, 2012

a post-sympathectomy denervation of the lower regions of the body, associated with incapacitating postural hypotension


The traditional biochemical tests of sympathetic nervous system function used in clinical diagnosis (urine and plasma catecholamine measurements) are indices of "overall" sympathetic nervous activity, and incapable of detecting localised changes in sympathetic tone confined to individual organs. Recently developed radiotracer methods, which enable the pattern of sympathetic nervous dysfunction in disease states to be delineated, were used to detect abnormalities in regional sympathetic nervous system activity in two patients presenting problems in management. In one, the abnormality of sympathetic function was iatrogenic, a post-sympathectomy denervation of the lower regions of the body, associated with incapacitating postural hypotension. In the other, unexplained persistent sinus tachycardia proved to be due to an increase in sympathetic nervous tone restricted to the innervation of the heart. Knowledge of the underlying sympathetic nervous pathophysiology in these patients influenced the choice of drugs subsequently used in their treatment.
Aust N Z J Med. 1984 Dec;14(6):855-9.
Two patients with abnormalities of regional sympathetic nervous tone.
O'Hehir R, Esler M, Jennings G, Leonard P, Little P, Johns J, Panetta F.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6598055