Several recent studies have suggested that tumour-specific expression of human equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 may be a promising predictive biomarker of outcome in pancreatic cancer patients receiving gemcitabine chemotherapy (Spratlin et al, 2004; Giovannetti et al, 2006; Farrell et al, 2009; Maréchal et al, 2009). This evidence concerns the gene SLC29A1 and familial pancreatic carcinoma.