"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

http://www.pfizer.no/templates/Page____886.aspx

sympathectomized arteries become more susceptible to lipid accumulation

Combined effect of cholesterol feeding and sympathectomy on the lipid content in rabbit aortas
Volume 37, Issue 4, December 1980, Pages 521–528

Decreased HRV is predictive of adverse cardiovascular outcomes in a variety of disease states

Water immersion-induced skin wrinkling (WISW) is dependent on intact peripheral sympathetic function. WISW was hypothesized to reflect autonomic function in subjects with- out peripheral neuropathy. We prospectively studied 70 healthy subjects (aged 31 88 years, 63% females) without cardiovascular risk factors or neurological disease. All sub- jects underwent short-term heart rate variability (HRV) stud- ies. Time and frequency domain variables were derived in- cluding the HRV index. WISW was graded using a previously validated scale of 1–4 of which 18.6% of subjects exhibited grade 1 (minimal) WISW and 35.7% had grade 2 WISW. On multivariate analysis using the HRV index, WISW was inde- pendently related to height and the HRV index. We conclude that WISW is related to central autonomic function.


Although the mechanism is not fully understood, WISW is felt to be caused by passive diffusion of water across the stratum corneum into the sweat ducts, which in turn alters electrolyte balance, decreases membrane stabilization, increases sympathetic neural firing and stimulates vasoconstriction [1–3, 8].WISW is decreased in diabetic patients and in patients after cervical sympathectomy [4, 9].
Heart rate variability (HRV) is the beat-to-beat variation in cardiac cycle length due to autonomic influence on the sinus node. Decreased HRV is predictive of adverse cardiovascular outcomes in a variety of disease states[5]. The influence of the central nervous system activity on autonomic function suggests that HRV may be a useful prognostic indicator in patients with cerebrovascular events [6].


Cardiology 2010;116:247–250 DOI: 10.1159/000316043
Received: May 10, 2010
Accepted after revision: May 28, 2010 Published online: August 18, 2010

In the Search for the Treatment of Compensatory Sweating

Removal of the clips from the sympathetic trunk does not provide resolution of compensatory sweating in 1 year of observation. T6-9 block does not provide remedy for compensatory hyperhidrosis. Regional abdomino-lumbar iontophoresis seems to be very promising, but further research and followup are mandatory.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3458267/

Is sympathectomy (ETS) safe and effective?

Well, it depends on who you ask.
We already know what the surgeons who offer the surgery have to say about it, as most of us was conned into having the surgery. We also know what these surgeons have to say about non-surgical options (ineffective, tedious, time-consuming, expensive, not permanent, resulting in disabling side-effects, very painful, useless - on one website patients are told that application of BOTOX requires general anaesthesia, just to scare them off that one... : http://archive.is/lSWd0 ). The question is answered very differently when you ask a medical professional who offers these non-surgical treatment options. Their advice and their version of FACTS always depends on the treatment and technique they have on offer. 
A very simple exercise: print out the texts from few of these websites and offer it to someone to read. Then let them guess what they think which treatment the medical professional is siding with, that is: which treatment is being offered and advertised by them. 

Here is a sample. You will most certainly detect that this medical professional is NOT offering ETS, as he selected different FACTS about the procedure and it's results.

and because you can never be safe enough, here is the archived version:


from:

Natural bodily functioning does not include “purely autonomic” or “purely somatic” responses, just as it does not include ‘purely sympathetic” or “purely parasympathetic” responses


Langley initially expected to find afferent cell bodies in autonomic ganglia, with projections to other ganglia. He believed that activation of these “autonomic afferents” should lead to purely autonomic responses. However Langley’s own careful work demonstrated that there were no such neurons.

The fundamentally important point is that integrative processes responsible for the organization of visceral function occur principally within the central nervous system (brain and/or spinal cord). Both somatic and visceral afferents result in complex, brain mediated, responses that include somatic and visceral function. Autonomic motor activity can be generated by both somatic and visceral inputs to the CNS, and visceral inputs to the CNS initiate responses that are both somatic and autonomic. Natural bodily functioning does not include “purely autonomic” or “purely somatic” responses, just as it does not include ‘purely sympathetic” or “purely parasympathetic” responses.

Bill Blessing and Ian Gibbins (2008), Scholarpedia, 3(7):2787.
revision #46085 [link to/cite this article]

Curator: Dr. Bill Blessing, Centre for Neuroscience, Flinders University, Adelaide, AUSTRALIA

there are three main conditions which could impair the autonomy of a patient's medical decision: insufficient information, irrational beliefs/desires, and influence of different framing effects

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2012.01973.x/abstract
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