Despite downpour, hundreds walk for oral health awareness

Beating the rain Saturday, over 250 people attended the Penn Dental School Oral Cancer Society’s third annual walk in Philadelphia to raise awareness and funds for a commonly undetected disease.

Over 100 students, faculty and alumni from the Dental School, as well as community members, registered for a 3.1-mile walk around campus as part of Oral Cancer Awareness Month.

“This is a disease that oftentimes gets very little publicity,” said professor and chairman of Oral Medicine Thomas Sollecito, who was also a faculty adviser for the walk. Whereas skin cancer receives widespread public attention, the same is not true of oral cancer, which affects the mouth, tongue and lips, Sollecito said.

According to the Oral Cancer Foundation, which benefited from the walk’s proceeds, the disease kills more people in the United States each year than the more commonly known skin, lymphatic, thyroid and cervical cancers, and in 2010, approximately 37,000 people were diagnosed.

Saturday’s event included a lecture for local dentists by Sollecito and speeches by oral cancer survivors Eva Grayzel and Robert Unruh. Participants were also invited to the atrium of the Dental School for free oral screenings, oral health products, information about the disease, face painting and refreshments.

In addition to raising awareness, the event offered the Dental School a chance to reach out to the community, second-year Dental student and Oral Cancer Society co-chairwoman Vani Takiar said.

Professor, walk faculty adviser and director of Community Health Joan Gluch said the event embodied the University’s “strong philosophy of community campus partnership.”

Sollecito, Gluch and Takiar all also emphasized the importance of diagnosing oral cancer early as the survival rate is 80 to 90 percent if it is discovered at an early stage. In part due to a lack of awareness, two-thirds of cases are found during late stages with a survival rate of only 20 to 30 percent.

Fourth-year Dental student Dylan Bordonaro said he discovered a potentially cancerous lesion in the mouth of one community member while conducting a screening, and noted that the event is a great learning opportunity for dental students.

“My family has been directly impacted by oral cancer,” Villanova University junior Lindsey Hagens said, explaining why it was important for her to be involved in the event. She added that the walk also provides an opportunity to inform younger generations of the disease. Risk factors include tobacco and alcohol use, increased age, poor diet, sun exposure and the human papilloma virus infection, according to the Oral Cancer Foundation.

This year, the walk was officially recognized by the City Council of Philadelphia through a citation from Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell.

In addition to the money raised from the walk’s registration fee, Takiar explained that additional funds were raised through donations, a raffle, a bracelet sale and a fundraiser with Ben & Jerry’s.

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