US health authorities cleared the use of Aventis's top-selling cancer treatment Taxotere for women with early-stage breast cancer, the Franco-German drugmaker, now part of Sanofi-Synthelabo, said.

The cancer treatment's new application, along with expected marketing clearances for other indications, should help Taxotere's worldwide sales reach more than three billion euros ($3.7 billion) a year within the next five years, Aventis has said.

Sales were 1.3 billion euros in 2003.

The US Food and Drug Administration's approval of the new treatment, for women with early-stage operable breast cancer that has spread to the lymph nodes, followed a six-month priority review.

"This authorisation opens a market of an additional 100,000 to 200,000 persons in the US, or a market potential of 700 to 800 million euros, that reinforces the 3 billion euro potential of the product," CM-CIC Securities analyst Francois Hamon said in a research note.

Aventis said in a statement that the additional indication for Taxotere was under review by European regulatory authorities.

It still expects to submit Taxotere, which is already being used to fight breast and lung cancer, for marketing approval for gastric cancer at the end of 2004 and for head and neck cancer next year.

Taxotere sales were 716 million euros in the first half of this year.

After skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, and is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in women after lung cancer, Aventis said.-Reuters