Hoff hopes that his trial, which is sponsored by the state of São Paulo, will get under way in a few weeks. He and his colleagues are not waiting on the animal studies because the compound has already been taken by thousands of people, he says, with no obvious signs of toxicity. His team plans to first test whether the dose that patients are currently taking is safe in ten people. After that, the trial will expand and will test whether the drug works against cancer.
He anticipates results in about six months, but it is likely that some patients will refuse to accept any data that question the effectiveness of phosphoethanolamine. Hoff says that some of his patients who took the compound had a hard time believing it when their cancer progressed. “A patient told me, ‘No, there is a mistake. I want to keep taking this’,” he says. “It has become a matter of faith.”
Meanwhile, de Andrade is worried about reports of patients — even those with early, potentially treatable disease — who decline standard treatment with chemotherapy or surgery in favour of taking the untested compound. “We are urging everyone: do not stop the formal treatment,” he says. “Do not stop.”