In September 2006, NICE recommended paclitaxel should not be used in the adjuvant treatment of early node-positive breast cancer. In 2018, it is approved in the United States for the treatment of breast, pancreatic, ovarian, Kaposis sarcoma and non-small-cell lung cancers. Similar compounds
Albumin-bound paclitaxel (trade name Abraxane, also called nab-paclitaxel) is an alternative formulation where paclitaxel is bound to albumin nanoparticles. Much of the clinical toxicity of paclitaxel is associated with the solvent Cremophor EL in which it is dissolved for delivery.Abraxis BioScience developed Abraxane, in which paclitaxel is bonded to albumin as an alternative delivery agent to the often toxic solvent delivery method. This was approved by the FDA in January 2005 for the treatment of breast cancer after failure of combination chemotherapy for metastatic disease or relapse within six months of adjuvant chemotherapy. It has since been approved for locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer and metastatic adenocarcinoma of the pancreas as well.Synthetic approaches to paclitaxel production led to the development of docetaxel. Docetaxel has a similar set of clinical uses to paclitaxel, and it is marketed under the brand name Taxotere. Taxanes, including paclitaxel, 10-deacetylbaccatin III, baccatin III, paclitaxel C, and 7-epipaclitaxel, have been found in the leaves and shells of hazel. The finding of these compounds in shells, which are considered discarded material and are mass-produced by many food industries, is of interest for the future availability of paclitaxel.
Although the majority of compounds screened were of synthetic origin, one chemist, Jonathan Hartwell, who was employed there from 1958 onwards, had  experience with natural product derived compounds, and began a plant screening operation. After some years of informal arrangements, in July 1960, the NCI commissioned the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) botanists to collect samples from about 1,000 plant species per year. On 21 August 1962, one of those botanists, Arthur S. Barclay, collected bark from a single Pacific yew tree in a forest north of the town of Packwood, Washington, as part of a four-month trip to collect material from over 200 different species. The material was then processed by a number of specialist CCNSC subcontractors, and one of the trees samples was found to be cytotoxic in a cellular assay on 22 May 1964.Accordingly, in late 1964 or early 1965, the fractionation and isolation laboratory run by Monroe E. Wall in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, began work on fresh Taxus samples,  isolating the active ingredient in September 1966 and announcing their findings at an April 1967 American Chemical Society meeting in Miami Beach. They named the pure compound taxol in June 1967. Wall and his colleague Wani published their results, including the chemical structure, in 1971.The NCI continued to commission work to collect more Taxus bark and to isolate increasing quantities of taxol.