A cancer drug just cracked the brain's toughest wall

In a trial at Oslo University Hospital, patients with recurrent glioblastoma — the most aggressive brain cancer — received a new drug before surgery, and researchers then checked the removed tumor tissue. The drug crossed the human blood-brain barrier, the wall that keeps more than 90% of cancer drugs out of the brain, and reached cancer-killing levels inside the tumor. The first three patients tolerated it well, with the first continuing on treatment for five months.