- link Copy URL - [ Share on X ](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona Mark World Cleft Awareness Day with a Milestone: 7,000 Cleft Surgeries Enabled — and $470 Million in Economic Impact https://www.3blmedia.com/markdownify/node/1317451?absolute=1&via=3blnews "Share on X") - [ Share on linkedin ](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://www.3blmedia.com/markdownify/node/1317451?absolute=1 "Share on Linkedin") - [ Share on facebook ](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://www.3blmedia.com/markdownify/node/1317451?absolute=1 "Share on Facebook") - [ email Share via email ](mailto:?subject=Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona Mark World Cleft Awareness Day with a Milestone: 7,000 Cleft Surgeries Enabled — and $470 Million in Economic Impact&body=ESG News from Smile Train https://www.3blmedia.com/markdownify/node/1317451?absolute=1 "Share via email") [Health & Healthcare](/categories/health-healthcare) # Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona Mark World Cleft Awareness Day with a Milestone: 7,000 Cleft Surgeries Enabled — and $470 Million in Economic Impact Jul 20, 2026 3:05 PM ET Campaign: [Smile Train: World Cleft Awareness Day 2026](/news/campaign/smile-train-world-cleft-awareness-day-2026) ![Robi is the 7,000th patient to receive cleft surgery through the partnership between Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona.](https://3blaws.s3.amazonaws.com/styles/carousel_2x/s3/2026-07/CORP-press-image-Robi-Patient-7000_1784572380-1_1784573770.png) NEW YORK, July 20, 2026 /3BL/ - In recognition of World Cleft Awareness Day, Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona are celebrating a major milestone in their partnership—the 7,000th cleft surgery enabled since 2021—and sharing new data that quantifies its impact well beyond the operating room. Behind that single number sits a wider story the partners are telling for the first time. Alongside the surgeries themselves, Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona are now sharing the long-term economic and human impact of this work as clear evidence that restoring a child’s smile reverberates through families, communities, and economies for decades. ## **Impact that outlasts the operating room** Using the framework of Smile Train’s Economic Impact Report, the surgeries enabled by Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona between 2021 and 2025 are projected to generate [more than $470 million in economic value](https://www.smiletrain.org/sites/default/files/2024-05/smile-train-economic-impact-report-over-25-years.pdf) over the patients’ lifetimes. The figure reflects a straightforward truth: a child who can eat, speak, and breathe normally can go to school, find work, and contribute fully to their family and community—opportunities an untreated cleft can quietly foreclose. The same surgeries are estimated to have averted more than 45,000 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)—a standard global-health measure in which one DALY represents one year of healthy life lost to disease or disability. Put simply, this work has restored the equivalent of more than 45,000 years of healthy living to children who might otherwise have spent them struggling to eat, speak, or breathe. “When you give a child cleft care, you give them back their childhood,” said Susannah Schaefer, President and CEO of Smile Train. “On top of that, you give a community a future contributor. The economic impact we’re sharing today puts a value on how a healed cleft changes a life, and changed lives change the world around them.” ## **An impact built to last** Founded in 2021, the five-year partnership between Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona is focused on advancing digital cleft care globally, combining Smile Train’s global network of trained local providers with Dentsply Sirona’s digital dental technologies and know-how. Rather than delivering care through short-term surgical missions, the partners invest in local clinicians and equipment so that safe, high-quality, comprehensive cleft care is available in communities year-round. “Behind every one of these 7,000 surgeries is a child who can now eat, speak, and smile without barriers, and a family whose future just changed,” said Rainer Seemann, VP, Chief Clinical Officer at Dentsply Sirona. “What moves me most is that this is not charity in the traditional sense. By equipping local clinicians with digital solutions and training, we’re building care that takes root in the community and stays there. That’s the kind of impact our people are proud to stand behind.” The milestone is being marked on World Cleft Awareness Day, observed July 20, which spotlights the diverse experiences of the global cleft community and the importance of comprehensive medical, emotional, and social support. Cleft conditions are common—impacting roughly one in every 700 children worldwide—yet remain widely misunderstood, and in many regions timely, comprehensive care is still difficult to access even though proven solutions exist. ## **About Smile Train** Smile Train empowers local medical professionals with training, funding, and resources to provide free cleft surgery and comprehensive cleft care to children globally. We advance a sustainable solution and scalable global health model for cleft treatment, drastically improving children’s lives, including their ability to eat, breathe, speak and ultimately thrive. To learn more about how Smile Train’s sustainable approach means donations have both an immediate and long-term impact, please [visit smiletrain.org](https://www.smiletrain.org/). ## **About Dentsply Sirona** Dentsply Sirona is the world’s largest diversified manufacturer of professional dental products and technologies, with over a century of innovation and service to the dental industry and patients worldwide. Dentsply Sirona develops, manufactures, and markets a comprehensive solutions offering including dental and oral health products as well as other consumable medical devices under a strong portfolio of world-class brands. Dentsply Sirona’s innovative products provide high-quality, effective and connected solutions to advance patient care and deliver better and safer dental care. Dentsply Sirona is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Company’s shares are listed in the United States on Nasdaq under the symbol XRAY. [Visit www.dentsplysirona.com](https://www.dentsplysirona.com/) for more information about Dentsply Sirona and its products. ## **Media Contact** Emily Gay | Public Relations | (561) 308-0089 [![Smle Train logo](/sites/default/files/2026-06/Smile%20Train_2026.png)](/profiles/smile-train) ### More from Smile Train ###### [Smile Train to Host Cleft Con 2026 Ahead of Second Annual World Cleft Awareness Day](/news/smile-train-host-cleft-con-2026-ahead-second-annual-world-cleft-awareness-day) Jul 16, 2026 8:05 AM ET ###### [Comprehensive Cleft Care: Why Cleft Treatment Is More Than Surgery](/news/comprehensive-cleft-care-why-cleft-treatment-is-more-than-surgery) Jul 14, 2026 10:00 AM ET ###### [Smile Train: Building Surgical Systems, Not Just Delivering Surgery](/news/smile-train-building-surgical-systems-not-just-delivering-surgery) Jul 13, 2026 10:50 AM ET