A " spray-on skin" which coats a wound with a layer of skin cells could help healing, according to US and Canadian researchers.
The spray was tested on 228 people with leg ulcers, which are painful open wounds that can last for months.
The findings, published in the Lancet, showed that ulcers treated with the spray were more likely to heal and did so more quickly.
Experts said faster healing could save money despite the cost of the spray.
Leg ulcers are hard to treat. The best treatment, compression bandages, will heal only about 70% of ulcers after six months. Other options include taking skin from somewhere else on the body and grafting it over the wound.
Instead the spray puts a coating of donated skin cells and blood-clotting proteins over the ulcer.
In the study, patients who were given the spray-on-skin every 14 days showed the most improvement.
The researchers said the size of the wound "began to decrease rapidly" as soon as the treatment started. In the patients who had the spray, 70% were healed after three months compared with 46% who received other treatment.
The spray was developed by Healthpoint Biotherapeutics in the US, which also funded the research.
Vast improvement
One of the scientists involved, Dr Herbert Slade, said: "The treatment we tested in this study has the potential to vastly improve recovery times and overall recovery from leg ulcers, without the need for a skin graft.
