SPINK1 and pancreatic neoplasm: The SPINK1 gene is normally not expressed outside of the pancreas, but its expression has been demonstrated to be elevated in pancreatic cancer (Friess et al, 2001; Iacobuzio-Donahue et al, 2002; Iacobuzio-Donahue et al, 2003a; Grutzmann et al, 2004; Fukushima et al, 2005), whereas the present study demonstrated that SPINK1 is highly expressed in normal pancreatic tissue compared with pancreatic cancer.