In other painful chronic diseases with an autoimmune component, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), one of the most potent factors that seems to be responsible for the typical hypertrophied synovium (pannus), oedema, swelling, and chondrolytic and osteolytic reactions, is VEGF (Afuwape et al., 2002; Malemud, 2007). The gene discussed is VEGFA; the disease is rheumatoid arthritis.