  We include the effect of evaporation in our evolutionary calculations of
close-in giant planets, based on a recent model for thermal evaporation taking
into account the XUV flux of the parent star (Lammer et al. 2003). Our analysis
leads to the existence of a critical mass for a given orbital distance $m_{\rm
crit}(a)$ below which the evaporation timescale becomes shorter than the
thermal timescale of the planet. For planets with initial masses below $m_{\rm
crit}$, evaporation leads to a rapid expansion of the outer layers and of the
total planetary radius, speeding up the evaporation process. Consequently, the
planet does not survive as long as estimated by a simple application of mass
loss rates without following consistently its evolution. We find out that the
transit planet HD 209458b might be in such a dramatic phase, although with an
extremely small probability. As a consequence, we predict that, after a certain
time, only planets above a value $m_{\rm crit}(a)$ should be present at an
orbital distance $a$ of a star. For planets with initial masses above $m_{\rm
crit}$, evaporation does not affect the evolution of the radius with time.
