Dentsply Sirona and Smile Train Mark 7,000th Cleft Surgery for Children on World Cleft Awareness Day
On July 20, 2026, World Cleft Awareness Day, dental technology company Dentsply Sirona and the nonprofit Smile Train announced that their five year partnership has enabled 7,000 cleft surgeries for children since 2021. The two organizations say the surgeries represent a projected 470 million dollars in lifetime economic value and more than 45,000 disability adjusted life years restored to patients, the first time the partners have put a number on the long term impact of their combined work.
What did Dentsply Sirona and Smile Train just announce?
The two organizations confirmed that their partnership, which pairs Dentsply Sirona's digital dental technology with Smile Train's network of trained local cleft care providers, has now made 7,000 cleft surgeries possible for children around the world. The announcement was timed to World Cleft Awareness Day, an annual observance Smile Train created to unite the global cleft community and draw attention to children still waiting for care. "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, Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer at Dentsply Sirona.
Key facts
- 7,000 cleft surgeries enabled since the partnership began in 2021 (Source: Dentsply Sirona and Smile Train joint announcement, July 20, 2026)
- 470 million dollars in projected lifetime economic value generated by those surgeries (Source: Dentsply Sirona and Smile Train, July 2026)
- More than 45,000 disability adjusted life years (DALYs) restored to patients (Source: Dentsply Sirona and Smile Train, July 2026)
- 5 million dollar founding donation when the partnership launched in September 2021 (Source: Smile Train, smiletrain.org)
How does the partnership actually deliver care to children?
The model is built around training local clinicians and equipping permanent treatment centers rather than flying in outside surgical teams for short term trips. According to Smile Train's own description of the partnership, Dentsply Sirona has supplied high tech dental equipment, including intraoral scanners and 3D printing systems, to help local partners establish advanced cleft treatment centers, and has opened its full catalog of clinical education courses to Smile Train's network of surgeons and dental specialists. The partnership also funded the first global treatment standards and best practices for digitized cleft care, along with a multi language online course and an International Scholars Program for hands on training.
That shift, from one time surgical missions to standing local capacity, is the core difference in how cleft care has evolved over the past two decades. The table below lays out the general contrast between the two approaches, based on how Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona describe their own model.
| Approach | Traditional short term surgical mission | Dentsply Sirona and Smile Train partnership model |
|---|---|---|
| Who provides care | Visiting surgical teams, present for days at a time | Trained local clinicians present in the community year round |
| Equipment | Often temporary or mission specific | Donated digital equipment, including intraoral scanners and 3D printers, installed permanently |
| Continuity of care | Follow up can be difficult once the mission ends | Local providers manage ongoing dental, speech and orthodontic follow up |
| Training focus | Skills stay largely with the visiting team | Local clinicians trained through a scholars program and online coursework |
Why does reaching 7,000 surgeries matter for families?
A cleft lip or cleft palate affects far more than appearance. Left untreated, it can interfere with a child's ability to eat, speak clearly, hear normally, and build the self confidence that supports school and social life. Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona cite a global rate of about 1 in 700 children born with a cleft, a reminder that this is not a rare condition in the families their partnership reaches. "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 470 million dollar economic value figure the partners cite is meant to capture that longer arc, the idea that a successful surgery in early childhood pays forward into a person's ability to work, learn and contribute over a lifetime.
What is World Cleft Awareness Day?
World Cleft Awareness Day falls on July 20 each year. Smile Train launched the observance to bring the global cleft care community together and to spotlight the estimated hundreds of thousands of children worldwide still waiting for treatment. This year's date also carried the Dentsply Sirona milestone announcement, and Smile Train's own regional teams marked the day with separate updates, including a report from Smile Train India crediting the country's program with more than 800,000 free surgeries to date.
How can families find pediatric dental support closer to home?
Craniofacial surgery is only one part of caring for a child with a cleft. Families typically need an ongoing relationship with a pediatric dentist or orthodontist who can coordinate feeding support in infancy, monitor tooth development, and plan orthodontic treatment as the child grows. Practices such as Sola Kids Dental & Orthodontics in Los Angeles are the kind of local pediatric dental home that a craniofacial team will often lean on for that long term follow up. The push toward more digital, coordinated pediatric care is not limited to cleft treatment either. It echoes a broader trend covered previously on Smile Listing, where Specialty Dental Brands rolled out Videa's AI tools across its pediatric network to support earlier diagnosis and better communication with parents.
Frequently asked questions
What is a cleft lip or cleft palate?
A cleft lip or cleft palate is a birth condition in which the tissue that forms the lip or the roof of the mouth does not fully join together during pregnancy, which can affect a child's feeding, speech, hearing and dental development if left untreated.
How many children are born with a cleft?
Smile Train and Dentsply Sirona cite a global estimate of about 1 in 700 children, though the exact rate varies by country and population, according to the organizations' July 2026 announcement.
Is cleft surgery covered by insurance in the United States?
In the United States, cleft lip and palate repair is generally treated as medically necessary and is typically covered by private health insurance and Medicaid. Families are usually referred to a craniofacial team, and coordinating with a local pediatric dentist helps manage the years of follow up care that come after surgery.
Where can families learn more about this partnership?
Details on the partnership's history, training programs and equipment donations are published by Smile Train, and the July 20, 2026 milestone announcement was distributed through 3BL Media. Background on the annual observance itself is available at World Cleft Awareness Day.
Updated July 2026
