Glioblastoma

Is there a cure for glioblastoma?

Not yet. Glioblastoma is treatable, but not yet curable: treatment can slow it down, ease symptoms and help people live longer. Six treatments are approved for glioblastoma by the US FDA: temozolomide (about this drug · open trials), lomustine (about this drug · open trials), carmustine (as a drip and as an implanted wafer) (about this drug · open trials), bevacizumab (about this drug · open trials) and the Optune tumour treating fields device (open trials). Researchers worldwide are working to do better.

What is the standard treatment today?

For most adults who are fit enough, the European EANO guideline (2021) recommends surgery to remove as much of the tumour as is safe, then radiotherapy given together with temozolomide chemotherapy, followed by six cycles of temozolomide. Tumour treating fields, a wearable device, are approved in the US for use with temozolomide. When the tumour comes back, doctors may consider lomustine, bevacizumab, more surgery or radiotherapy, or a clinical trial.

What new treatments are being tested?

As of November 2026, our database lists 248 different investigational treatments in recruiting or ongoing glioblastoma trials from Phase 1 to Phase 3. They include:

• targeted drugs such as niraparib (open trials), paxalisib (open trials) and vebreltinib (open trials);
• immunotherapies, including pembrolizumab (open trials), cancer vaccines and personalised T-cell therapy (TVI-Brain-1);
• radioactive medicines that seek out tumour cells, such as TLX101 (open trials);
• devices that briefly open the blood-brain barrier with ultrasound (SonoCloud-9, NaviFUS) so that drugs can reach the tumour;
• new ways to treat the tumour during or after surgery, such as GammaTile (open trials) radiation implants, intraoperative radiotherapy and laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT) (open trials).

Several hundred laboratory and animal studies published in the past year explore further ideas. Most of these need years of work before they can be tested in people.

Which treatments are closest to patients?

Eleven treatments have reached Phase 3, the last stage before a request for approval. Among the new medicines and devices furthest along:

• NaviFUS (open trials) focused ultrasound with bevacizumab for recurrent glioblastoma (Phase 3, NCT06496971, recruiting);
• TLX101, a radioactive drug, added to standard care for recurrent glioblastoma (Phase 3, NCT07100730, recruiting);
• niraparib, a PARP inhibitor, compared with temozolomide in newly diagnosed glioblastoma without MGMT methylation (Phase 3, NCT06388733, active, not recruiting).

Other Phase 3 trials test pembrolizumab with tumour treating fields and temozolomide (EF-41, NCT06556563), the SonoCloud-9 implant with carboplatin (NCT05902169) (open trials) and adding lomustine to temozolomide (NCT06419946). The GBM AGILE platform trial (NCT03970447) tests several drugs side by side.

When are results expected?

Trial teams estimate that main data collection will finish around the end of 2026 for NaviFUS, mid-2027 for TLX101, the end of 2027 for niraparib and 2029 for EF-41. These dates are estimates and often move. A positive result would still need review by regulators before a treatment becomes widely available.