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

Friday, July 18, 2008

Sympathectomy as a treatment for Social Phobia

Pohjavaara P, Telaranta T, Väisänen E.

Tampere City Mental Health Care Centre, Finland. paipoh@koti.soon.fi

Social phobia is a neglected disorder, which can cause very debilitating consequences in patients' lives. The patients tend to isolate and suffer from comorbid disorders such as depression, other anxiety disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse. Traditional treatment methods such as medication and psychotherapy do not help everyone. A prospective, uncontrolled follow-up study with 169 social phobic patients was performed by uni- or bilateral endoscopic sympathetic block of the upper thoracic ganglia.

Endoscopic sympathetic block is recommended as the treatment of choice in severe, conservative therapy resistant social phobia.
Ann Chir Gynaecol. 2001;90(3):177-84.

Psychoneurological applications of endoscopic sympathetic blocks

Telaranta T.

University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland. timo.telaranta@privatix.fi

In addition to more widely and longer known indications of ETS, various neurological disorders and psychologically stressful situations in their worst expressions might be alleviated by the reversible ESB procedure. The patients with social phobia, especially those who have also blushing and/or stage fright type of heart racing, benefit from the ESB. The disturbances of the sympathetic nervous system, e. g. in Parkinson's disease and multiple system atrophy might be alleviated with sympathetic block, especially the extrapyramidal symptoms in these diseases. In migraine, sympathetic surgery has been noted to give some help. The unilateral left-sided block has been effective in long QT-syndrome type arrhythmias. In schizophrenia, the phobic, paranoic or confusional reactions have been tentatively treated by the sympathetic block.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14673667&dopt=AbstractPlus