my (%pal, $key_pal, $data, %key_pal, $pal);
open (FILE, "< pal.txt") || print "There is no PAL file here";
while ( my $line = <FILE> ) {
  chomp $line;
  $key_pal, $data = split ",", $line;
  $key_pal{$pal} = $data;
}

##</code><code>##

if ($pal{$key_pal} eq $my_item) { ...some code here}