September, 2004

Dear Readers:

I have had the pleasure to work on Wounds over the last decade with our Executive Editor, Elizabeth Klumpp. She has managed the difficult areas of producing each issue of the journal, thereby making my job quite easy. Therefore, it is with personal sadness to report that Elizabeth has decided to change directions in her career. She has resigned from HMP in order to spend more time with her three young children. Our Editorial Advisory Board members, her colleagues at HMP, and I will certainly miss Elizabeth. She plans to work in her home office as an

Mölnlycke Health Care, Inc. (Newtown, Penn.) announces an addition to its Tendra® line of wound dressings featuring Safetac® soft silicone technology, Mepilex® Lite. Mepilex Lite is a highly conformable thin foam dressing that absorbs exudate and helps maintain a moist wound environment. The Safetac layer creates a seal around the wound edges, which deters exudate from leaking onto the surrounding skin, minimizing the risk for maceration.
Mepilex Lite may be used as a primary dressing for the management of a wide range of non- to low-exuding wounds, such as radiation skin reactions, low

Acknowledgment: This work was supported by the Wound Biotechnology Foundation, Boston, Massachusetts

T issue culture for establishing and maintaining cells derived from skin, such as dermal fibroblasts, is a well established technique. The advantage of studying cells from skin in vitro is that it allows investigators to better explore mechanisms of disease and understand how cells respond to certain stimulatory or inhibitory signals. Moreover, cells can be derived from diseased skin and other organs and can be useful in developing insights into abnormalities that may have

M ethotrexate is an antimitotic drug that affects by competition with dihydrofolate reductase in the DNA synthesis.1 It has anti-inflammatory and anti-arthritic effects by decreasing the proliferation of lymphocytes and changing the polymorphonuclear chemotaxis.2 It acts as an anti-cancer drug in higher doses and as an anti-rheumatoid agent in lower doses.3 One study showed that methotrexate damages the epidermis by decreasing the proliferation of keratinocytes.4
Skin and mucous membrane reactions associated with methotrexate treatment were repor