부산대학교 도서관

In order to clarify the effectiveness and problems of thoracoscopic sympathectomy for palmar hyperhidrosis, a total of 47 patients undergone sequential bilateral thoracoscopic sympathectomy (ETS) at the hospital were enrolled in this questionnaire study. We sent them questionnaires asking about sweating, recurrence, wound pain, compensatory sweating, cosmetic aspect and satisfaction. We recover-ed answers from 31 patients. There were 12 males and 19 females with a mean age of 26±14 years. Though the degree of palmar and plantar hyperhidrosis at the preoperative period was about 5.6±1.6 points (7 points scale), that of palmar hyperhidrosis was significantly improved to 1.6±1.0 (right) and 1.9±1.4 (left) at the postoperative period (p<0.001). There were three recurrence cases of palmar hyperhidrosis (9.7%). Compensatory sweating was occurred in 30 cases, 97%, most of them complained of it on the back, chest, femur, hip and axilla. Wound pain was minimal (2.8±2.6 points, 11 points scale), satisfaction for wound had good points (8.8±1.1 points, 10 points scale). We considered that they were almost satisfied with the ETS procedure (7.8±2.0 points, 10 points scale). It is concluded that ETS was remarkably effective for palmar hyperhidrosis in term of recurrent rate, wound pain, cosmetic aspect and satisfaction. But we must continue to improve this procedure because the compensatory sweating decreased the patient's quality of life.