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

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Autonomic dysfunction and multiple sclerosis

Multiple Sclerosis, Vol. 7, No. 5, 327-334 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/135245850100700509
© 2001 SAGE Publications
Autonomic dysfunction in multiple sclerosis is related to disease activity and progression of disability
Peter Flachenecker
Karlheinz Reiners
Miriam Krauser
Annalaska Wolf
Klaus V Toyka
Background: Autonomic dysfunction is frequently observed in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) but the evolution over time and the relationship to clinical characteristics are not yet established.
Objectives: We investigated the correlation of disease activity and progression of disability with composite scores of cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction and serum levels of catecholamines in a cross-sectional study of patients with clinically active and clinically stable MS.
Results: In the cross-sectional study, the number of patients with at least one abnormal sympathetic test was higher in the `active' patient group (39%) than in healthy controls (8%, P50.02) or `stable' patients (0%, P50.04), while no difference was seen in the parasympathetic score. Median catecholamine levels were significantly lower in `active' MS patients than in those with stable disease (norepinephrine, 204 ng/l (interquartile range 158-310 ng/l) vs 363 ng/l (269-507 ng/l), P50.02 and epinephrine, 23 ng/l (16-28 ng/l) vs 32 ng/l (24-107 ng/l), P50.04). In the subgroup of patients studied longitudinally, parasympathetic but not sympathetic dysfunction increased slightly during the follow-up period, with a significant correlation to the increase in clinical disability (r=0.7, P50.002).
Conclusions: Parasympathetic dysfunction was closely related to the progression of disability in patients with MS. In contrast, sympathetic dysfunction was associated to the clinical activity of MS. This is in line with previous observations suggesting that the autonomic nervous system may be intimately linked with the disordered immune regulation in MS.