Pan and coworkers developed assays for five candidate biomarkers of pancreatic cancer and quantified them in plasma obtained from 20 healthy patients, 20 patients with chronic pancreatitis, 20 with early stage pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, finding that three of the markers gelsolin, lumican, and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase 1 can distinguish pancreatic cancer from controls 135. Here, TIMP1 is linked to familial pancreatic carcinoma.