Surgical treatment of axillary hyperhidrosis.

In the human axilla, the proportion of eccrine and apocrine sweat glands is 1:1. The former are in the dermis, while most of the latter are in the subcutaneous cellular tissue. After studying the difficult methods that have been described for the surgical treatment of axillary hyperhidrosis, we concluded that the treatment should be as radical as possible and deal with both types of glands. The technique described here is a combined method which removes en bloc the skin and subcutaneous cellular tissue of more than half the area of sweating and the subcutaneous cellular tissue of the rest, leaving an S-shaped scar that follows the main axis of the axilla. Problems with this method have been minimal. Follow-up studies carried out up to 3 years after the operation have indicated excellent results.