The 15th Annual Symposium on Advanced Wound Care and the 12th Annual Medical Research Forum on Wound Repair (SAWC) were held concurrently at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, Maryland, April 27-30, 2002. Although the two meetings have been held concurrently for nine years, they have only been one seamless meeting, simply known as the SAWC, for seven years. As always, the meeting was jointly sponsored by HMP Communications (founders of the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care) and the University of Miami (founders of the Medical Research Forum on Wound Repair). For the past seven years, the SAWC has also been the annual meeting for the Association for the Advancement of Wound Care (AAWC), which contributes educational sessions to the meeting as well. This year, as in the past several years, the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel contributed a session that focused on pressure ulcer prevention and treatment. For the first time, the Wound Healing Society contributed a session entitled Genetics and Wound Healing. This year, members of the Hyperbaric Medicine Society and the American Diabetes Association also contributed.

Attendance in 2002 was an overwhelming success. More than 1,400 paid attendees participated as well as 700 members of industry from more than 90 exhibiting companies. Attendees were a disparate group of interested individuals, including physicians, scientists, podiatrists, nurses, and advanced nursing specialists, as well as therapists. From an educational standpoint, the SAWC was a tremendous success as well. This year's meeting was the inaugural year of the John Boswick Memorial Award and Lectureship. The award, named after the renowned burn surgeon, John Boswick, MD, who was instrumental in fostering wound healing research, education, and practice for a half century, was given to Thomas Hunt, MD, professor emeritus at the University of California San Francisco for his lifetime of contributions to wound healing. The lectureship focused on Dr. Hunt's work related to oxygen and wound healing and featured not only Dr. Hunt but two other investigators influenced by Dr. Hunt's work, Dr. Harriet Hopf and Dr. Chandan Sen.

The SAWC was divided into four broad tracks. These tracks included common wound healing problems, research, advanced clinical practice, and practice issues. The common wound healing track had presentations related to offloading for diabetic foot ulcers, venous leg ulcers, pressure ulcers, nutrition, and infection. The research track included presentations concerning the latest research and translational information related to the pathophysiology of chronic wounds, growth factors, peripheral vascular disease, wound proteinases and genetics, and wound healing. Sessions included in the advanced clinical practice track covered inflammatory ulcers, hyperbaric medicine, treatment of burns and epidermolysis bullosa, tissue engineering, and physical agents in wound healing. The practice issues track included discussions on prevention, evidence-based medicine and cost analysis, quality of life, telemedicine for wound care, and treatment of difficult wounds.

Among the many highlights of the meeting was the tremendous educational material presented in the general sessions. In addition to the John Boswick Memorial lectureship, Andrew Boulton, MD, FRCP, led a fascinating panel discussion concerning various aspects of diabetes mellitus and wound healing. Joining Dr. Boulton on the panel were psychologist Richard Rubin, PhD, endocrinologist and psychologist Loretta Vileikyte, MD, and podiatrist David Armstrong, DPM. This multidisciplinary panel covered a variety of critical information to clinicians who care for patients with diabetes mellitus. Other general sessions included the opening session during which George Rodeheaver, PhD, was joined by Richard Rubin, PhD, and Daniel Gottlieb, PhD, who presented both the clinician and patient aspects of chronic wound care. The closing session featured coverage about the emerging resistance patterns in skin and wound practice and development of novel therapies aimed at addressing this problem. Francisco A. Kerdel, MBBS, BSc; Lorraine Dowdy, DO; and Kenneth Tomecki, MD, excelled in the coverage of this difficult topic.

What was perhaps most impressive about the 2002 SAWC was the wealth of exceptional new material presented in both oral and poster form. The abstracts from these presentations will soon be available at http://www.woundcaresymposium.com. Visit this site often or e-mail sdonata@hmpcommunications.com for updates on the SAWC meeting in 2003 in Las Vegas.

Robert Kirsner, MD
President, AAWC
Co-Chairperson, SAWC
Section Editor/Editorial Board Member, WOUNDS