By nucleic acid hybridization and PCR techniques, oncogene expression in normal human pancreatic tissue as well as 4 human pancreatic adenocarcinoma cell lines were studied. Additionally, c-Ki-ras gene point mutation were also detected in the paraffin embedded sections collected from 34 cases of surgical specimens resected due to pancreatic adenocarcinoma. The results showed that none of the 5 oncogenes described was expressed in the normal human pancreatic tissue, whereas, all the human pancreatic adenocarcinoma cell lines expressed c-myc and c-Ki-ras oncogenes. 28 out of 34 cases (82.4%) of human pancreatic adenocarcinomas had c-Ki-ras gene codon 12 point mutation.