 I'm Bill Brough with kidney cancer news for January 2015. Biological bad luck is blamed in two-thirds of cancer cases. This according to an article in Reuters reported by Will Dunham, plain old bad luck appears to play a major role in determining who gets cancer and who does not. According to researchers who found that two-thirds of cancer incidents of various types can be blamed on random mutations and not heredity or risky habits like smoking. U.S. cancer death rates are falling, saving a million and a half lives. As reported for Life Science by Megan Gannon, the death rates from most cancers have dropped across the United States, sparing the lives of a million and a half Americans over two decades according to a new report. There was a 22% decline in the average rate of all cancer deaths from 1991 to 2011. Kidney Cancer Journal is the only publication of its kind dedicated exclusively to kidney cancer. The official journal of the Kidney Cancer Association is available online. You can read the winter edition by visiting the press room at kidneycancer.org. In Jacksonville, Florida, word from Mayo researchers that cancer biopsies do not appear to promote cancer spread. A study of more than 2,000 patients by Mayo researchers at the Jacksonville campus shows that biopsies do not cause cancer to spread. Patients who received a biopsy had a better outcome and longer survival than patients who did not. Finally, the Kidney Cancer Association has posted links on its website that may be used to stratify the many clinical trials in kidney cancer that are listed on the clinicaltrials.gov website. Generally, only those trials currently recruiting patients will be listed. You can find the search tool by visiting the press room section on the home page at kidneycancer.org. Join us again next month for more kidney cancer news.