Wider Use of Cancer Drug Urged

SILVER SPRING, Md. — A U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel Friday unanimously recommended expanding the approved uses of leading cancer drug Taxol for patients with early-stage breast cancer.

Taxol, sold by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., is the world’s most widely used cancer drug. It already has the government’s approval for fighting metastatic breast cancer and some lung cancers. It also is the leading drug for ovarian cancer and had 1998 sales of $1.2 billion.

The panel voted, 8 to 0, to recommend that the FDA approve Taxol as part of a treatment regimen for patients with “node-positive” breast cancer that had spread to the lymph nodes but no further.

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer killer of women in the United States, following lung cancer.