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

Monday, January 19, 2009

Sympathectomy as a cure for psychiatric mischief...

Of those I have
met, however, some have been supposed to be subject to deep psychiatric
mischief, none has benefited from psychiatric treatment, and all have been
cured by sympathectomy. Furthermore it must be noted as a matter of
special interest that the cure is permanent, and the trouble does not recur
even in patients who show evidence of some return of sympathetic function.

SOME UNSOLVED PROBLEMS IN THE SURGERY OF THE
SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM
Bradshaw Lecture delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England
on 11th June, 1953
by
Professor Sir James Paterson Ross, K.C.V.O., F.R.C.S.
Vice-President, Royal College of Surgeons of England