Cancer of the exocrine pancreas will attack an estimated 31,000 Americans in 2004, causing an estimated 30,000 deaths. Cancer of the exocrine pancreas occurs more frequently in African-Americans than in European-Americans. The disease progresses rapidly. Pancreatic cancer is usually refractory to treatment, with a median survival time of 12 mo. Overall, only 1% of patients live more than 5 yr after diagnosis. However, if the disease is diagnosed when it is localized, the 5-yr survival is approx 20%. It would be beneficial to detect pancreatic cancer at an early stage, when combination therapy with surgery and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)-based chemotherapy might permit survival. In view of the current lack of a reliable method for early diagnosis, we propose noninvasive measurement of the oncogene expression profile of the cancer and subsequent ablation of those cells expressing the activating oncogenes.