GAST and pernicious anemia: Usually, gastrin is not expressed in the adult pancreas but surprisingly reappears in PanINs.139 Patients with pernicious anemia and elevated serum gastrin levels have an increased incidence of pancreatic neoplasia.140 It was also shown that gastrin promotes the growth of several human PC cell lines in an autocrine manner141,142 as a ligand binding to CCK B receptor (CCK-RB) to participate in pancreatic carcinogenesis.