DNA sequencing may provide a more effective way to predict a patient’s risk of kidney cancer recurrence and could one day lead to more personalized treatment.

Studying the mutations in kidney cancer after surgery could help to better predict the risk of the disease coming back, according to the latest results of a decade-long international study.

The research, undertaken by a team of 44 researchers at 23 institutions across Europe and Canada, including McGill University, is the largest to link the genetic changes that occur in kidney cancer to patient outcomes.

More than 400,000 people are diagnosed with kidney cancer each year globally, including 8,100 in Canada and 81,800 in the United States. “Our research shows that it may be possible to improve the way we determine risk in each patient by looking at the genetic mutations present in their cancer,” says Yasser Riazalhosseini, Assistant Professor of Human Genetics, and Head of Cancer Genomics at the Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Institute of Genomic Medicine at McGill University.