The susceptibility of the family members to pancreatic cancer thus would require all 3 elements for pancreatic cancer: k-ras mutation, injury, and palladin-activated fibroblasts; but in the case of Family X, it takes less to initiate or promote a cancer as they already possess one of the required elements: the easily primed, palladin-mutated fibroblasts. This evidence concerns the gene KRAS and familial pancreatic carcinoma.