Study of indications, techniques and results of operations on the sympathetic nervous system

Pain is an unpleasant sensation related to a noxious stimulus and accompanied by emotional and physiological reactions. Many factors affect these responses and the level of pain perceived from a given stimulus varies, both between subjects and within the same subject on different occasions. It is often assumed that all pain is similar but an individual's sensitivity to different types of experimentally induced pain is variable. This work was carried out on selected group of patients in Department of Surgery, underwent lumbar sympathectomy, cervical sympathectomy and celiac ganglion block were admitted during three years  includes 55 cases i.e. 34 cases of lumbar sympathectomy 2 cases of splanchnicectomy, 3 cases of cervical sympathectomy and 16 cases of coeliac ganglion block. All the patients studied were smoker except the patients who were women and underwent sympathectomy.The most common presenting symptoms was pain in the lower limbs. Most often it was associated with ulcer or frank gangrene. Wasting of the foot and leg muscles was seen in quite a considerable number of the patients about 37%.Pain was relieved in approximately 88% patients underwent sympathectomy.