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

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

abnormalities of the autonomic nervous system are correlated with death risk

Michael Lauer: It's been known for a long time that abnormalities of the autonomic nervous system are correlated with death risk, but the problem is that the way in which these abnormalities are measured are very difficult. They require sophisticated equipment and they require the kind of tests which simply have not entered the realm of normal clinical practice. What we find is that these very, very simple measures that are obtained as part of regular routine exercise testing deflect what happens to the autonomic nervous system and provides us with just as powerful predictors of risk of death.
(Dr Michael Lauer, cardiologist, Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio)
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/stories/s63595.htm