November, 2005

Dear Readers,

The clinical and research contributions in this issue of WOUNDS were selected by Dr. Tania Phillips, Section Editor for Dermatologic Perspective on Wounds. In her introductory commentary, Dr. Phillips provides brief summaries of the topics presented in this special issue: 1) a case study and review of the rare but potentially fatal disease, toxic epidermal necrolysis, by Federman et al. (Toxic epidermal necrolysis: report of a fatal case of recurrent disease and literature review); 2) an overview of necrotic skin lesions caused by a spider bite and a discussion of the importance, albeit the difficulty, of early diagnosis (Brown recluse spider bites: a rare cause of necrotic wounds) by Norden and Phillips; and 3) gender and age-related differences in wound healing in the work presented by Hardman and Ashcroft (Hormonal influences on wound healing: a review of current experimental data).

In addition to her work as Section Editor, Dr. Phillips is well known to our Readers as the Department Editor for Diagnostic Dilemmas. In this month’s installment, Etufugh et al. present a case and discussion of a chronic squamous cell carcinoma ulcer.