"Acceptance by the medical community is not a substitute for rigorous testing" TESTIMONY OF JOHN M. FRIEDBERG, M.D., NEUROLOGIST, BEFORE THE MENTAL HEALTH COMMITTEE OF THE NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY
"Sympathectomy is a technique about which we have limited knowledge, applied to disorders about which we have little understanding." Associate Professor Robert Boas, Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australasian College of Anaesthetists and the Royal College of Anaesthetists
Fake websites in the service of the ETS industry - who protects the patients?
Many surgeons compete with each other for the attention of the 'costumer' in the saturated market of the www. Adaptations to a business model raises ethical questions that should have been explored long ago and should have raised the ire of the medical community. The occasional whimper of discord is silenced by the cacophony of (ignorant) enthusiasm. Not quite the scientific behavior one would expect.
How does the entrepreneurial aspect of medicine impact on the information patients are given? In the area of elective procedures, is it in the interest of the service provider to provide full disclosure? Does self-interest influence and modify how the information is conveyed? How information morphs into little facts and more emoting, to appeal to the irrational in all of us, to seduce us.
Fake websites that pretend to be independent, informative, with the sole raison d'etre to praise the surgeon's skill, expertise and experience, - and to hook the patient into reading more on the surgeons' website, with many obvious links to the surgeon on every page.
Why are predatory practices of medical professionals tolerated?
In 70 % compensatory sweating severe, recurrence rates were 15% and 19% at 1 and 2 years after surgery
In T2 resection, recurrence rates were 15% and 19% at 1 and 2 years after surgery.It was not rare for a patient to experience recurrence more than 3 years after surgery.
Motoki Yano, MD, PhD and Yoshitaka Fujii, MD, PhD
Volume 138, Issue 1, Pages 40-45 (July 2005)
The results of endoscopic sympathectomy deteriorate progressively from the immediate outcome
1999, vol. 86, no1, pp. 45-47 (12 ref.)
a strong association of autonomic dysfunction and impaired cerebral autoregulation
Drug and Alcohol Dependence
Volume 110, Issue 3, 1 August 2010, Pages 240-246
After sympathectomy for hyperhidrosis, very severe discomfort and hyperhidrosis occurred with alarming frequency and intensity
"After thoracoscopic sympathectomy for hyperhidrosis, very severe discomfort and hyperhidrosis in the neighboring non-sympathectomized regions occurred with alarming frequency and intensity."
(p.879)
Cousins and Bridenbaugh's Neural Blockade in Clinical Anesthesia and Pain Medicine by Michael J Cousins, Phillip O Bridenbaugh, Daniel B Carr, and Terese T HorlockerWolters Kluwer Health
Edition: 4 - 2008
Sympathectomy is one of the causes or Orthostatic Hypotension
Causes of Orthostatic Hypotension
Peripheral
Amyloidosis
Diabetic, alcoholic, or nutritional neuropathy
Familial dysautonomia (Riley-Day syndrome)
Guillain-Barré syndrome
Paraneoplastic syndromes
Pure autonomic failure (formerly called idiopathic orthostatic hypotension)
Surgical sympathectomy
http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/sec07/ch069/ch069d.htmlcervical ganglionectomy produces a significant reduction in the noradrenergic innervation of ip- silateral extraparenchymal arteries
for the presence of noradrenergic fibers. The results of the study demonstrate that:
(1) superior cervical ganglionectomy produces a significant reduction in the noradrenergic innervation of ipsilateral extraparenchymal arteries;
(2) the peripheral sympathetic nervous system contributes to overall cerebral vascular resistance primarily by affecting resistance in extraparenchymal arteries; and
(3) as a result, it determines the contribution of the extraparenchymal arteries tooverall cerebral blood flow autoregulation.
1975;6;284-292 Stroke
interrupting sympathetic efferent fibers innervating the heart and baroreflex
Baroreflex control of heart rate during cardiac sympathectomy by epidural anesthesia in lightly anesthetized humans.
Dohi S, Tsuchida H, Mayumi T
Anesth Analg 1983; 62:815-20.
Baroreflex sensitivity, measured as cardiac acceleration in response to nitroglycerin, was significantly lower (p < style="font-weight: bold;">The results suggest that baroreflex-mediated response to decreases in arterial pressure is dependent on the integrity of the sympathetic nervous system.
Baroreflex control of heart rate during high thoracic epidural anaesthesia. A randomised clinical trial on anaesthetised humans.
Goertz A, Heinrich H, Seeling W
Anaesthesia 1992; 47:984-7.
Other causes of autonomic dysfunction: sympathectomy
The finger wrinkling response is abolished by upper thoracic sympathectomy. The test is also abnormal in some patients with diabetic autonomic dysfunction, the Guillan-Barre syndrome and other peripheral sympathetic dysfunction in limbs. (p.46)
Other causes of autonomic dysfunction without neurological signs include medications, acute autonomic failure, endocrine disease, surgical sympathectomy . (p.100)
Anhidrosis is the usual effect of destruction of sympathetic supply to the face. However about 35% of patients with sympathetic devervation of the face, acessory fibres (reaching the face through the trigeminal system) become hyperactive and hyperhidrosis occurs, occasionally causing the interesting phenomenon of alternating hyperhidrosis and Horner's Syndrome (Ottomo and Heimburger, 1980). (p.159)
bradycardia and other cardiac complications are common side effects?
http://tipbilimleri.turkiyeklinikleri.com/abstract_54802.html
"It is a lie that sympatholysis may specifically cure patients
...it is not an error. but a lie. While conceptual errors are not only forgivable, but natural to inexact medical science, lies, particularly when entrepreneurially inspired are condemnable and call for a peer intervention.
J. Neurology (1999) 246: 875-879
Lack of disclosure to ETS patients is unethical and would be criminal in a just society
Although it is not possible to predict exactly what will occur in each individual case, there is nearly 100 years of published scientific and medical research available on the effects of sympathectomy. That research paints a very different picture of the effects of this surgery than the one presented to patients considering this surgery. That's the issue. Generally, they lie and tell patients that CS is inconsequential in all but a tiny fraction of cases and simply fail to disclose a huge number of verified adverse effects of the surgery. They take advantage of the patient's ignorance on medical matter. It's unethical and would be criminal in a just society.
In short, you do have a way of knowing what will likely occur as a result of the surgery before you have it done. All the information necessary to make an informed decision exists. It's just not getting to patients.
http://etsandreversals.yuku.com/reply/22927/Would-you-do-it-again#reply-22927
Surgical sympathectomy listed as neurologic disorder
- Idiopathic orthostatic hypotension
- Multiple sclerosis
- Parkinsonism
- Posterior fossa tumor
- Shy-Drager syndrome
- Spinal cord injury with paraplegia
- Surgical sympathectomy
- Syringomyelia
- Syringobulbia
- Tabes dorsales (syphillis)
- Wernicke's encephalopathy
Dizziness: Classification and Pathophysiology
The Journal of Manual and Manipulative Therapy, Vol. 12, No 4 (2004)
Sympathectomy induces adrenergic excitability of cutaneous C-fiber nociceptors
nerve damage causes an inflammatory response
eicosanoids; these mediators may contribute to the hyperalgesia which results from nerve injury. The cell types most likely to be responsible include macrophages and postganglionic sympathetic neurones.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/pjh3832058475340/
D. J. Tracey1 J. S. Walker1
School of Anatomy, University of New South Wales, 2052 Sydney, NSW, Australia
The brain and the immune system are the two major adaptive systems of the body. During an immune response the brain and the immune system “talk to each other” and this process is essential for maintaining homeostasis. Two major pathway systems are involved in this cross-talk: the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). This overview focuses on the role of SNS in neuroimmune interactions, an area that has received much less attention than the role of HPA axis. Evidence accumulated over the last 20 years suggests that norepinephrine (NE) fulfills the criteria for neurotransmitter/neuromodulator in lymphoid organs.
http://pharmrev.aspetjournals.org/content/52/4/595.abstract