Spray-on treatment uses skin cells to speed venous leg ulcer healing.

HealthDay (8/3, Dotinga) reports, "A pharmaceutical company says preliminary findings support a spray-on treatment that uses skin cells to speed the healing of venous leg ulcers," according to research published online Aug. 3 in The Lancet.

        WebMD (8/3, Mann) points out that in the study, "researchers tested two strengths of the new therapy, along with compression bandages."

        "Spray-on skin cells significantly improved wound healing versus standard care in patients with venous leg ulcers," MedPage Today (8/3, Bankhead) reports. "The mean reduction in wound area at 12 weeks ranged from 8% to 16% greater with the mix of keratinocytes and fibroblasts versus placebo (P=0.0446)," researchers reported in the study that was sponsored by Healthpoint Biotherapeutics, developer of the spray-on skin compound. "The best results occurred with the lowest dose of spray-on cells, which resulted in complete healing in almost a third more patients as compared with the placebo group (P=0.0267)."

        According to Medscape (8/3, Pullen), an accompanying editorial observed, "The benefits...could well be applicable in other chronic wounds such as ischaemic and diabetic foot ulcers." The editorialists added, "In particular, we want to encourage the scientific community and industry to investigate the effects of tissue and cell therapy products in patients with mixed arterial-venous leg ulcers, when revascularisation is not possible. In such patients, compression therapy can be done only in a limited way, if at all."