The Emperor of All Maladies
 

The book, The Emperor of All Maladies, is excellent, and I highly recommend it. It's extremely well written, and it reads like an adventure story.

Ken Burns is involved in a film project for PBS that will air next month. Here's the trailer. It looks awesome. http://video.pbs.org/video/2365362396/

Knowing more about cancer can help you figure out what you're up against and what might or might not help you deal with it. Unlike an infectious disease, cancer is not a foreign invader. It's our own cells misbehaving. It's normal healing and growth processes going haywire. In a very real sense, every person's cancer is as distinctive and unique as she is.

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

I'm extremely excited about this film. I read the book this last summer while sitting for tx at Dana Farber. I cannot wait to see what Ken Burns does with the material. Important stuff that we should all pay close attention to. Thanks for sharing.

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

Just watched th trailer on my local PBS station from Amy's link. Ken Burn's mother died from cancer when he was only 11. Watch the trailer and get ready for the spring 2015 airing on your local Pbs station. Thanks for posting Amy. I loved the doctor who talked about Hope!

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

Just ordered the book from Amazon. Cant wait to read it. Thanks!

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

Thank you so much for posting!

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

Thanks so much Amy!!! Going to order it now from Amazon

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

Thanks Amy. I watched the trailer and am looking forward to seeing the movie on PBS.

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

Thanks, Amy. Just added it to some other books I'm ordering thru Amazon. Can't wait to read it!

:-) Penny

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

Got it yesterday in the mail, from Amazon. Started it - very readable, very interesting, so far. Thanks again, Amy.

:-) Penny

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

Thanks for posting. I read The Emperor of All Maladies not long after I was diagnosed and found it really helped me to understand what was happening. It is excellent! I didn't know Ken Burns was doing a PBS special on the subject. Thank you for sharing.

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

I should probably add that not everyone wants so much information. A dear friend who had leukemia three times (and is still in remission after the 2009 bout with it) rebuffed my suggestion that he read it. He said he just picks great doctors and does what they tell him to do. That's OK. We all have our own coping styles.

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

I have wanted to read the book since it was published. I had my SO download the ebook for me so that I could read it on two long plane rides last week. I am 75% through it, and it is a page turner! Very well written, and the author obviously worked with a great editor because all of the material is so well arranged. I plan to finish it prior to watching the documentary on PBS.

Hopeful

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

This is airing tonight, or you can watch it online at your convenience. http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/cancer-e...es/when-watch/

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

Hi Amy and everyone,

I watched the PBS version last night and have it on right NOW! Last night with the research toward Herceptin and trials was sort of like my life passing before my very eyes!

Hope more of you get a chance to see it, as now it is talking about more current breakthroughs.

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

I watched it and enjoyed seeing and listening to and learning from all the talented people who have been key in making a difference from the past and present (including Ken Burns and his people, and all the PBS people involved).

But I was disappointed that after over a decade of trastuzumab usage for early stage HER2 positive bc, I didn't understand why targeted treatment like trastuzumab does not work for all HER2 positive patients, or why there are strongly HER2 positive patients who never received it and yet have not recurred many years later. I missed a brief part of the presentation, and wonder if anyone else could explain what trials have been done or are in progress to find out to try to limit the overuse of the treatment?

A.A.

P.S. The portion I missed was right when they started talking about pathways and I think they did a quick image of connecting various dots with various colors. Where I missed making full sense of that image was because my mind went wandering off on its own in trying to evaluate the benefit of targeted drugs if cancers just generally mutate anyway.

Then I started wondering if maybe my cancer had mutated and whether that is what actually ended up saving my bacon rather than cooking it, since I never had trastuzumab yet I had a very aggressive stage 1 HER2 breast cancer. And after that bit of wandering, I started wondering just what role the chemo might have really played in my cancer... and whether it wasn't the killing of cancer cells by chemo that did the trick but rather perhaps it was the chemo that caused the mutation....

I'm sorry. I will watch the rest of the 3rd program over to see what I missed.

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

I taped the programs. Have one more to watch. Thank goodness for all the doctors and scientists who work so hard to solve the cancer problem. Ken Burns made good viewing once again.

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

AA,

They didn't really address Herceptin resistance, or say anyone's done trials to figure out who benefits. Or anyway I'm pretty sure they didn't.

They did say that after the initial excitement over Gleevec and Herceptin there have been many disappointments. Then they moved on to immune therapy.

Re: The Emperor of All Maladies
 

Thanks, Amy. We especially look for miracles, and the program presented some understanding about the disappointments as well as the possibilities. I understand more of it than I did the first time I watched it.

A.A.