Patient Decision-Making FactorsCommunication in Healthcarecompensatory sweatingsympathectomylegstrunk
How successful is sympathectomy?
Mr Usman Jaffer discusses the success rate of sympathectomy and the risks involved. This procedure is over 90% successful but there are some complications which can occur. A major side effect is compensatory sweating, which is excessive sweating in other parts of the body. As a result, up to 30% regret having sympathectomy done. Therefore, in some cases where the primary symptoms are not severe enough, the benefits of sympathectomy may not outweigh the side effects. Overall, it is a highly effective treatment but the overall benefit must be considered.
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This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
How successful is sympathectomy? Sympathectomy, if it's technically successful in terms of cutting the chain, should be well over 90% successful. The problem arises as to side effects or the complications of having a sympathectomy done. The main side effect of having a sympathectomy done is what we call compensatory sweating. and studies have shown that up to 30% of people regret having sympathetic to me done and that's basically because the primary symptom wasn't severe enough for them to feel that cure was enough of a benefit to outweigh the side effect of compensatory sweating. A compensatory sweating is excess sweating in other body parts for example the trunk and the legs and perhaps those 30% of people historically who regretted having sympathectomy, regretted it because their primary symptom wasn't severe enough. So in summary, sympathectomy is very, very effective, but it's really important to understand which people will gain overall benefit from it.
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