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

Spinal cord infarction occurring during thoraco-lumbar sympathectomy
J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 1963;26:418-421 doi:10.1136/jnnp.26.5.418

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Sympathectomy altered electroactivity on the heart

The influences on the cardiac autonomic nerve system of the ETS of upper thoracic sympathetic nerve were seen to be of a lesser degree at rest. However, the response to sympathetic stimulation was suppressed after the surgery.
Eur J Cardiothorac Surg 1999;15:194-198
http://ejcts.ctsnetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/15/2/194

Sympathectomy altered electroactivity on the heart

The influences on the cardiac autonomic nerve system of the ETS of upper thoracic sympathetic nerve were seen to be of a lesser degree at rest. However, the response to sympathetic stimulation was suppressed after the surgery.
Eur J Cardiothorac Surg 1999;15:194-198
http://ejcts.ctsnetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/15/2/194

reduced high-frequency power after sympathetic blockade

Alternatively, reduced high-frequency power after sympathetic blockade may also be explained by diminished “accentuated antagonism,” a phenomenon described more than three decades ago (4). Heart rate response to vagal nerve stimulation is accentuated when sympathetic tone is elevated, and vice versa. Thus, cardiac sympathetic withdrawal by high spinal or epidural blockade may have resulted in diminished beat-to-beat fluctuations of R-R intervals without alteration of actual vagal nerve activity. To draw a definitive conclusion regarding the mechanism, determinations of central vagal/sympathetic outflow would be mandatory by an animal experiment.
http://www.anesthesia-analgesia.org/content/100/4/1216.2.full

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