Vascular endothelial growth factor seems to play a major role in tumour neoangiogenesis: transfection of tumour cells with VEGF results in enhanced angiogenesis and tumour growth in animal models (Zhang et al, 1995), antibodies blocking VEGF bioactivity inhibit tumour growth (Kim et al, 1993) and VEGF expression correlates with the degree of tumour vascularisation and the prognosis of several cancers (Vlaykova et al, 1999; Han et al, 2001). This evidence concerns the gene VEGFA and cancer.