Larger, more rigorous clinical trials of gadolinium-texaphyrin have just started, and the approach is also being tried for prostate, pancreatic and neck tumours.
More experiments with the stuff in the brightest square (a combination of oxygen with the metals gallium and gadolinium) led to a surprising conclusion.
In people, gadolinium-texaphyrin has been tested against secondary brain cancers those caused by renegade cancer cells breaking off from a primary tumour in the breast or lung and setting up shop in the head.