New study: Antidepressants show promise in treating brain tumors

The drug vortioxetine, approved for use in the treatment of depression, appears to be one of the most effective treatments against glioblastoma, an aggressive and deadly type of brain cancer, according to a study published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Finding effective drugs against brain tumors is difficult because they often cannot cross the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain. Oncologists have long been intensively searching for more effective drugs that could reach the brain and destroy the tumor.

With glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive brain tumor, doctors can extend patients' lives with surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, but half of patients die within twelve months of diagnosis.

Researchers led by ETH Zurich Professor Berend Schneider and collaborating neurologists from the University Hospital Zurich have identified a substance that effectively fights glioblastomas in laboratory conditions – the antidepressant borteoxetine.

Using pharmacoscopy – a special platform that scientists at ETH Zurich have developed in recent years – the researchers were able to simultaneously test several active substances in living cells from human cancer tissue.

Their research has focused primarily on neuroactive substances that cross the blood-brain barrier, such as antidepressants, Parkinson's disease drugs and antipsychotics. In total, the research team tested up to 130 different agents on cancer tissue from 40 patients, and also used a computer model to screen more than a million substances for effectiveness against glioblastoma.

In the final step, researchers from the University Hospital Zurich tested borteoxetine in mice with glioblastoma. In these trials, the drug also showed good efficacy, especially in combination with existing standard treatment. The research team is now preparing two clinical trials. In one, glioblastoma patients will receive borteoxetine treatment along with standard treatment, and in the second, patients will receive an individual choice of drug, which the researchers will determine for each person using a pharmacoscopy platform.

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