-A treatment used for women with advanced breast cancer has been found to reduce the risk of death and recurrence by up to half in the early stages of the disease, doctors said yesterday.

The study, involving nearly 1,500 women from 20 countries including Britain, tested a new drug combination using docetaxel, the drug derived from yew, against the best chemotherapy combination available.

After three years, 82 per cent of women who had been treated with docetaxel were alive and disease-free, compared with 74 per cent given the older treatment.

The trial's success was revealed at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Orlando, Florida.

Dr Jean-Marc Nabholtz, chairman of the Breast Cancer International Research group, which conducted the trial, told the meeting: "The superior results observed with the docetaxel-based regimen indicate that it can potentially cure more women than one of the best chemotherapies we have".

Half the women received the treatment including docetaxel, which is called TAC, and half the older chemotherapy, known as FAC.

All the women had received surgery for breast cancer which in all cases had spread to their lymph nodes.

In the TAC group, the women had 32 per cent less chance of their cancer returning compared with the FAC group. Among women with the least number of lymph nodes affected, one to three, relapse was reduced by 50 per cent and the risk of death after three years was reduced by 54 per cent.

Anthony Howell, professor of medical oncology at the Christie Hospital, Manchester, led the British arm of the study. He said: "This looks like a real advance and it is very encouraging. The results are important for two reasons.

"They represent a new and possibly very large advance in the choice of chemotherapy for many women but they also may indicate a very good regimen for future combination with new therapies coming from biological research."

In the trial, the TAC chemotherapy had some more severe side-effects including a greater vulnerability to infection.

Another new drug for breast cancer, anastrozole, which has already been found to improve survival compared with the gold standard drug, tamoxifen, in early breast cancer, has a further advantage, the meeting was told. A new finding from the trial of 9,366 women has found that their risk of womb cancer is five times lower if they are taking anastrozole compared with tamoxifen.

-. Howell was my wife's oncologist, and enrolled her on an earlier trial of Taxol/Epirubicin. I was very impressed with him.

Incidentally, Docetaxel is also known as Taxotere.

Somehow, when these news stories come out they don't seem so new, because many places have already accepted and acted upon the results long before the final formal publication.