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, March 11, 2008

Sympathectomy for Erythromelalgia

Yuki Nakajima1 Contact Information, Kiyoshi Koizumi1, Tomomi Hirata1, Kyoji Hirai1, Atsuhiro Sakamoto1 and Kazuo Shimizu1

(1) Department of Surgery II, Nippon Medical School, 1-1-5 Sendagi, Bunkyo-ku, 113-8603 Tokyo, Japan

Received: 19 January 2004 Accepted: 8 July 2004

Abstract Erythromelalgia is known as a rare syndrome of unknown etiology, characterized by redness with burning pain, edema associated with increased skin temperature in the upper and/or lower extremities. Various treatments such as drug therapies and sympathetic blockade were reported. We report two cases including a 57-year-old woman and a 64-year-old woman, showing the successful clinical outcome by bilateral thoracoscopic sympathectomy.

Key words primary erythromelalgia - sympathectomy - thoracoscopic surgery