• Qiuli He, Jianjun Zhu, Ge Luo, Lei Liu, Jiachun Tao, Huadong Ni, Ming Yao, and Keyue Xie.
• Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Research center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Jiaxing University, Jiaxing, China.
• Pain Physician. 2022 Jul 1; 25 (4): E689-E695.

BackgroundAt present, there are many surgical treatments for primary hyperhidrosis (PH), but their medium- and long-term effects remain unclear.ObjectivesTo evaluate and compare the efficacy of radiofrequency sympathectomy (RFS) and percutaneous ethanol sympatholysis (PES) in the treatment of PH.Study DesignA retrospective study.SettingThis study was performed at the Affiliated Hospital of Jiaxing University, China.MethodsPatients who underwent RFS and PES at The First Affiliated Hospital of Jiaxing University for PH were retrospectively reviewed from January 2016 through December 2018 and were divided into an RFS group and a PES group. The Hyperhidrosis Disease Severity Scale  was evaluated at the following time points: before the operation, immediately after the operation, 12 months and 24 months after the operation. The effective rate, patient satisfaction, and compensatory hyperhidrosis were also evaluated.ResultsA total of 94 patients diagnosed with primary hyperhidrosis were included (RFS group, n = 45; PES group, n = 49). RFS yielded a postprocedure 24-month effective rate of 53.33% in treating hyperhidrosis compared to PES (24.49%, P < 0.05). There were no significant differences between the 2 groups regarding patient satisfaction (P = 0.927) and compensatory hyperhidrosis (P = 0.711).LimitationsThis was a single-center study.ConclusionThis is the first clinical study to evaluate the efficacy of RFS and compare it with PES in treating primary hyperhidrosis. RFS significantly decreased hyperhidrosis and had a higher 2-year effective rate compared to PES.

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