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

Saturday, February 18, 2012

reduced oxygen saturation and shallow respiration after a thoracoscopic sympathectomy

  1. D. J. Canty1,2,3,* and  C. F. Royse4,5
1Department of Anaesthesia, Royal Hobart Hospital, 48 Liverpool Street, Hobart, Tasmania 7000, Australia
  1. 2Medical School of The University of Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia
  2. 3Department of Pharmacology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
  3. 4Anaesthesia and Pain Management Unit, Department of Pharmacology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
  4. 5Royal Melbourne Hospital, Victoria, Australia
  1. *Corresponding author. E-mail: david.canty@dhhs.tas.gov.au 
  2.     http://bja.oxfordjournals.org/content/103/3/352.full