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, August 13, 2012

The effect of bilateral sympathectomy was significantly greater than that of unilateral sympathectomy


The effect of bilateral sympathectomy was significantly greater than that of unilateral sympathectomy. Unilateral and bilateral sympathectomy produced similar reductions in the concentrations of NPY-ir and NA in the ventricular tissue. In contrast dissimilar changes were produced in the atrium. Although bilateral sympathectomy almost totally depleted the NA from the right atrium (by 98%), the NPY-ir levels were only reduced by 50%. These results indicate that approximately half the content of NPY in the right atrium is not present in sympathetic noradrenergic neurones. 

Source

University of Melbourne, Department of Medicine, Austin Hospital, Heidelberg, Vic., Australia.
 1987 Dec;21(2-3):101-7.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3450689

sympathectomy induced morphological alterations in the masseter muscles


Sympathectomized animals showed varying degrees of metabolic and morphological alterations, especially 18 months after sympathectomy. The first five groups showed a higher frequency of type I fibres, whilst the oldest group showed a higher frequency of type IIb fibres. In the oldest group, a significant variation in fibre diameter was observed. Many fibres showed small diameter, atrophy, hypertrophy, splitting, and necrosis. Areas with fibrosis were observed. Thus cervical sympathectomy induced morphological alterations in the masseter muscles. These alterations were, in part, similar to both denervation and myopathy. These findings indicate that sympathetic innervation contributes to the maintenance of the morphological and metabolic features of masseter muscle fibres.

Bilateral cervical sympathectomies should be avoided because of the destruction of cardioaccelerator tone

http://www.hiesiger.com/physicians/physicianrfl.html

SURGICAL SYMPATHECTOMY ON THE SENSITIVITY TO EPINEPHRINE OF THE BLOOD VESSELS OF MUSCULAR SEGMENTS OF THE LIMBS

Pursuing this study of the effect of epinephrine on muscle blood flow, Duff and Swan (10) reported that during intravenous epinephrine infusions the initial marked dilatation was succeeded by a second phase of moderate dilatation in normal but not in sympathectomized limbs. Because of its absence in chronically sympathectomized limbs this secondary vasodilatation was at that time thought to be an indirect vasomotor effect mediated by the sympathetic nerves. Re-examination of their data in the light of some subsequent critical experiments now reveals that the difference which they found between normal and sympathectomized limbs may be ascribed largely to vascular hypersensitivity in the later.
In the present paper these additional data are reported, and are incorporated with those of Duff and Swan(10); the whole material being interpreted to provide evidence that hypersensitivity of the vessels of skeletal muscle in the upper and lower limbs may result from pre- and postganglionic sympathectomy in man.
EFFECT OF SURGICAL SYMPATHECTOMY ON THE SENSITIVITY TO EPINEPHRINE OF THE BLOOD VESSELS OF MUSCULAR SEGMENTS OF THE LIMBS, ROBERT S. DUFF
J Clin Invest. 1953 September; 32(9): 851–857.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC438413/