 Studies carried out in the 1960s demonstrated that an alcoholic extract of the ground root of "Aniba megaphylla" inhibited, "in vitro", growth of cells derived from human carcinoma of the nasopharynx.In 1978, the active components of the extract were isolated using silica gel chromatography, characterized and named as megaphone (C22H30O6, solid), megaphone acetate (C24H32O7, oily liquid) and megaphyllone acetate (C23H28O7, oily liquid).For comparison, megaphone acetate was also produced synthetically by reacting megaphone with acetic anhydride at 50 °C for 6 hours.