Events

Did you know that smoking, exposure to sunlight, tobacco and areca nut (supari) use have all been linked to oral cancer? Despite being one of the most preventable cancers, oral cancer kills nearly one person every hour of every day of the year worldwide. Considered as the global epicenter of this disease, India contributes to almost one-third of the global oral cancer burden.
Columbia Global Centers | Mumbai and the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center invite you to a critical discussion around the importance of screening, early diagnosis, and prevention of oral cancer. Join our panel of experts as they share multi-pronged strategies to combat the challenge of oral cancer in India and the world, and find out what you can do to reduce your risk for this deadly disease.

PANELISTS:
Salvatore Caruana
Director, Head and Neck Surgery, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Columbia University Medical Center

Arjun Singh
Fellow, Head and Neck Surgery, Tata Memorial Hospital

Monika Arora
Director & Professor, Health Promotion Division, Public Health Foundation of India

MODERATOR:
Ravina Aggarwal
Director, Columbia Global Centers | Mumbai

About the Speakers:

Salvatore Caruana is Associate Professor of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Director of Head and Neck Surgery Division, Columbia University. Dr. Caruana completed medical school at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine 1989 and his Otolaryngology residency training in the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary in 1995. Following residency he completed a two and a half year NIH funded fellowship training in head and neck surgical oncology at Memorial  Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Since that time Dr. Caruana has been involved in academic clinical practice and academic teaching.  He was previously faculty at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary - Saint Vincent’s Hospital program after which he left and transitioned to Columbia University academic faculty in 2007 where he has been ever since.

Arjun Singh is currently fellow in the Division of Head and Neck Surgery at the prestigious Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai. An oral and maxillofacial surgeon, Dr. Singh is a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, Glasgow, and an associate member of the European Association of Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgeons. An avid public health enthusiast with research interests in detection of oral pre-malignant and malignant lesions, m-health and population-based screening methods, Dr. Singh has been working with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on developing an economical confocal microscope for population-based screening of oral premalignant lesions. He is also a part of various prospective public health studies in India that assess the economic impact of oral cancer. Dr. Singh is associated with various hospitals and clinics across Mumbai and has authored many scientific articles in national and international journals on oral cancer.

Monika Arora is Director of the Health Promotion Division and Professor at Public Health Foundation of
India. A public health scientist working in the area of health promotion and health advocacy with focus
on NCD prevention and control, she is also a board Member of NCD Alliance, Geneva for the period
2019-2021. Her expertise is in designing, implementing, managing and evaluating intervention programmes in various health promotion settings, large scale group randomized trials as well as qualitative and policy research on NCD prevention and management. Dr. Arora’s approach of translating research to policy and program action have informed many National Health Programs such as the National Tobacco Control Program in India. She has been a member of the WHO Civil Society Working Group on the third High-level Meeting of the UN General Assembly on NCDs and is currently a Member of Second WHO Civil Society Working Group on NCDs formed by the WHO Director General for the term April 2019-April 2021. Professor Arora has been honored with the Best Practices Award in Global Health in 2011 by the prestigious Global Health Council. She has also been awarded with the WHO Director General’s World No Tobacco Day Award in 2012; and “Exceptional Women of Excellence 2018 Award” by Women Economic Forum (WEF) in April 2018.