This expression analysis of 35 samples, composed of normal (n = 6) and increasingly neoplastic pancreatic tissue (n = 29), indicated that palladin RNA was overexpressed very early in the development of pancreatic cancer—in normal-appearing whole tissue immediately adjacent to cancer, in the precancer, and in the cancer—of both familial and sporadic forms of the disease. The gene discussed is PALLD; the disease is familial pancreatic carcinoma.