LIFE

KET gears up for 'Emperor of All Maladies' cancer film

Darla Carter
Dr. Donald Miller, of the James Graham Brown Cancer Center, will be part of a call-in program on KET to answer viewers' questions about cancer.

KET is gearing up for the three-night airing of Ken Burns' "Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies."

The film, based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Siddhartha Mukherjee, airs at 9 p.m. (EST) March 30, 31 and April 1, and KET will package it with an "Answers for Cancer" call-in program, featuring Louisville cancer expert Donald Miller, on the last night.

The film, directed by Barak Goodman, examines cancer "with a cellular biologist's precision, a historian's perspective and a biographer's passion," according to the description accompanying the trailer at pbs.org.

Mukherjee, a cancer physician and scientist who wrote the book "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer," appeared in Louisville in 2011 as a special guest of the Kentucky Author Forum. The book, which explores cancer history, patients' stories and research, was inspired by a cancer patient who wanted to know what she was fighting against.

She'd "given so much of her time to being in medical trials and it seemed surprising to me that we hadn't sort of returned the favor, as it were, and given her a sense of where we were in the history and what was happening next and what was the essence of her illness," Mukherjee said in a Courier-Journal preview of the forum event. "It was really an attempt by me to try to come to terms with that."

The film will explore some of the same ground as well as scientific advancements since the book came out in 2010, according to an Associated Press story. Find more details about the film at http://cancerfilms.org.

The final installment of the film will be preceded by the call-in program at 8 p.m. April 1, according to KET. It will feature cancer survivors and experts responding to viewers' questions about cancer treatment and recovery resources in Kentucky.

The experts will include Dr. Donald Miller, director of the University of Louisville's James Graham Brown Cancer Center, a part of KentuckyOne Health.

Viewers also can get insight into cancer by watching "One to One with Bill Goodman" at 1 p.m. March 29 on KET. The show will feature Dr. Mark Evers, director of the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center, discussing cancer care and research.

Follow Courier-Journal health writer Darla Carter on Twitter @PrimeDarla.