Any preclinical biomarker study at the discovery stage should include an inflammatory control of the target organ to increase the chance of identifying disease-specific markers (Chechlinska et al. 2010; Lindahl et al. 2016). Here, CP serves as an inflammatory control of the pancreas for PDAC-specific marker discovery. In addition, CP is a risk factor for PDAC development and the two diseases share several inflammatory parameters. It is therefore imperative to identify PDAC-unique markers specific for the discrimination of PDAC and CP.