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, November 30, 2008

reduction of catecholamines by more than 90%

Sympathectomy has been used to study the role of the sympathetic nervous system in the control of gastric acid secretion. Conflicting results may reflect differences in the sympathectomy procedures used. In a previous study we showed a reduction of catecholamines by more than 90% in the gut wall of the rat after surgical upper abdominal sympathectomy.

Total denervation, including combined surgical and chemical sympathectomy plus vagotomy, did not reduce noradrenaline levels more than surgical sympathectomy alone, suggesting that the proportion of adrenergic fibers that derive from the vagus is quantitatively insignificant but that the vagus exerts a local control of the sympathetic stores of gastric catecholamines. Thus, surgical upper abdominal sympathectomy is the method of choice in studies of the role of the sympathetic nervous system in regulating gastric functions. Adrenaline and dopamine levels were much lower than the noradrenaline levels but showed roughly the same trends of changes after the denervations (except that chemical sympathectomy did not affect dopamine).
Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology, Volume 20, Issue 10 December 1985 , pages 1276 - 1280
H. Graffner a; M. Ekelund a; R. Haringkanson a; E. Rosengren a
Affiliation: a Depts. of Surgery and Pharmacology, University of Lund, Lund, Sweden