Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, beta-adrenergic receptors and lung cancer

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in all industrialized countries. Although cancers at other organ sites are more than twice as common, their cure rate is considerably higher. The most common cancer in men is prostate cancer with a cure rate of 84%. Breast cancer is the leading type of cancer in women with a cure rate of 74%. By contrast, 158,700 (89.3%) of the 177,700 patients diagnosed with lung cancer in the year 1996 died within 12 months of diagnosis (American Cancer Society, 1997).