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, June 30, 2013

Impairment of heart action following various methods of surgical denervation

A considerable variation in the distribution of fibres from the left sympathetic trunk to the right heart and from the right sympathetic trunk to the left side of the heart has also been shown (Randall et al., 1968a). However, the normal pattern is that large sympathetic nerves reach the base of the heart anteriorly and descend on either side of the main pulmonary artery. Nerves descending on the right of the pulmonary artery go to the atria and right ventricle. 

Interruption of afferent and efferent innervation of the heart also produces a response from circulatory and renal systems. 
Surgical cardiac denervation was carried out in 25 greyhounds and their responses to exercise, propranolol, and atropine were observed between one and three months afterwards. Our experiments confirm that a denervated heart shows delayed and diminished response to exercise and no response to atropine and propranolol.
Impairment of heart action following various methods of surgical denervation
T. J. OTTO' and P. C. CHEAH
The Nuffield Unit of Clinical Physiology, Department of Surgery, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Ducane Road, London, W.12
Thorax(1970),25,199.