Furthermore, the demonstration that gastrin and PACAP, similar to tumour microenvironment factors such as hypoxia, acidosis and nitric oxide (Xie, 2001), regulate IL-8 expression underline the need to further investigate the use of IL-8-neutralising antibodies, IL-8 receptor blockers or IL-8 gene silencing approaches in the treatment of NE GI tumours. This evidence concerns the gene CXCL8 and digestive system neoplasm.