Thoracoscopic sympathectomy is an acceptable form of treatment for palmar hyperhidrosis. Many authors have reported favourable results. Complications range from pneumo-haemothorax, Horner's syndrome, compensatory hyperhidrosis and bleeding. Plas et al reported 2.7% of the procedures had complications requiring intervention and 9.7% had non-interventive complications. There have been isolated re...

A 26-year-old man suffered from hyperhidrosis palmaris since childhood. He had received bilateral transaxillary thoracoscopic T3 sympathectomy immediately after the operation weakness in right biceps, brachialradialis, deltoid, supraspinatus, and infraspinatus muscles and parathesia in right C5-6 dermatomes were noted. Serial neurological studies indicated a right brachial plexopathy. We placed...

Ten patients with the long QT syndrome and recurrent syncope and/or cardiac arrest caused by ventricular arrhythmias underwent left stellate (one patient) or left cervicothoracic sympathectomy (nine patients) after failing to respond to high-dose /3-blocker therapy. The syndrome was familial in four and idiopathic in six. All patients had a prolonged resting QT interval (548 -+ 51 msec, mean SD...

Endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy has become the preferred method for treating intractable palmar hyperhidrosis because of its simplicity, though various complications have been reported. We report two patients suffered from severe palmar pompholyx-like eczema following this procedure. One was successfully treated with topical and oral steroids, however, the other had a wavelike continuation of...

THis paper deals only with sympatlhectomy lor the cxtremities anld includles the results of three operations. For the lower limb, anl excision of the sympathetic chain, 3 to 6 cm. in length, centred opposite the third lumbar vertebra, has been the stanidard procedure. rhis includes the fourth lumbar ganglion and in many cases the third ganglion also. The extraperitoneal route is used, with spin...

Although the holocaust of two world wars has provided ample opportunity for further stU(ly, causalgia remains an enigma, for its pathogenesis is still obscure and the treatment by sympathectomy largely empirical. In this paper some of the current theories of the pathogenesis of causalgia will be reviewed and an attempt made to explain the role of sympathectomy in the relief of pain. These obser...