An international study involving 11 countries, including Japan, the United States and some European countries, published in the journal Nature this week, looked at the genome of 962 people with kidney cancer. This is the largest study of its kind to sequence the genome of kidney cancer patients.

The findings showed that 7 in 10 Japanese kidney cancer patients had a specific change  (mutation) in their DNA, which is rarely seen in people from other countries.

Work is ongoing to determine the nature of the mutation and to find its cause.

The study is also looking at known risk factors for kidney cancer. The researchers have found that smoking directly damaged genes, whereas other risk factors promoted the development of kidney cancer by other means.

Read more on the website of the National Cancer Centre Japan here