The pion-nucleon $sigma$-term can be stringently constrained by the combination of analyticity, unitarity, and crossing symmetry with phenomenological information on the pion-nucleon scattering lengths. Recently, lattice calculations at the physical point have been reported that find lower values by about $3sigma$ with respect to the phenomenological determination. We point out that a lattice measurement of the pion-nucleon scattering lengths could help resolve the situation by testing the values extracted from spectroscopy measurements in pionic atoms.
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