A cheap antidepressant may help treat a particularly aggressive, currently incurable brain tumor, Swiss scientists have found in the first laboratory study. There are several treatments for glioblastoma, a common, fast-growing brain tumor that kills most patients within 12 to 18 months. In general, brain cancer is difficult to treat because the blood-brain barrier - a layer of cells that acts as a filter between the central nervous system and the rest of the body - makes it difficult for drugs to penetrate tumors. For the new study, scientists at the University Hospital Zurich tested 132 drugs on cancerous tissue from glioblastoma patients who had recently undergone surgery, combined with computer modeling and studies on laboratory mice. They mainly studied drugs that can penetrate the blood-brain barrier, including antidepressants, Parkinson's disease drugs and neuroleptics. In tests, the antidepressant vortioxetine performed best and was “exceptionally stable,” according to the study, the results of which are published in the journal Nature Medicine. In tests on cancer cells, vortioxetine was effective in fighting tumors in 66.7% of patients. In the European Union, vortioxetine is sold under the brand name Brintellix by the Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck. It has been approved for the treatment of severe depression in the EU, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. This means that if clinical trials are successful, the drug does not have to go through a complicated approval process and could soon become an addition to standard therapy for this deadly brain tumor.