Julio César Santana Garay

Trainer of several generations of dentists in the field of prevention and treatment of oral cancer, he wanted to study medicine since childhood, but life's circumstances led him to enroll in dentistry.

He entered the University of La Habana in 1948, at which time an entrance exam was administered for the first and only time for that degree program, whose sole objective was to try to establish a selective procedure to favor certain applicants. The students, including Garay, caused such an uproar that the aforementioned test was eliminated forever and all those enrolled in the first year were able to begin their studies without problems.

Although at first he still longed to be a physician, he gradually grew to like dentistry more and more, and upon graduating as a dental surgeon in 1954, he was among the top students of his class and had completed oral surgery internships at the then Hospital de Emergencias in the capital.

Santana Garay stands out from the beginning of his practice for his total dedication to patients. His connections with oncology begin almost by chance, when at a meeting of physicians in that specialty, the late professor Zoilo Marinello expressed his concern that Cuban dentists were not concerned with the issue of oral cancer.

That meeting changed the direction of his professional work and he decides to dedicate himself entirely to the research and treatment of this type of neoplasm, which has as its main sites of appearance the tongue, the floor of the mouth, the palate, the gums and the mucosa of the cheek.

In the early 1960s, Julio Santana won a position through competitive examination in the School of Dentistry, where he held the position of head of the Department of Surgery and Pathology for more than fifteen years. He would later be appointed vice-dean of Research and Postgraduate Education.

Also around that time he joined the Head and Neck Service of the National Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology. He traveled throughout Cuba for years giving lectures and workshops, which laid the groundwork for the future implementation of a national oral cancer detection program.

Finally, this was officially established in August 1982 by resolution of the Vice Minister of Public Health at that time. The program prepared dentists throughout the country to master the clinical procedures of oral examination and to be able to detect lesions of less than one centimeter in very early stages, a stage at which this malignant disease is highly curable.

As a result of his work, Cuba has been able to reduce the morbidity and mortality of this aggressive carcinoma, capable of causing rapid metastases if not diagnosed in time throughout the entire cervical region, and maintain a curability rate of 52% of cases detected after five years, comparable to what has been reported by the most developed nations in the world.

He is also a Senior and Merit Researcher at the Superior Institute of Medical Sciences of La Habana and staunchly defends the close link between research, teaching and medical care, something in which Dr. Santana Garay is a true paradigm.

In July 2009 the Assembly of the Latin American Dental Federation (FOLA) agreed to proclaim December 5, the date of his birth, as Latin American Day of Struggle Against Oral Cancer, to pay him well-deserved tribute for having dedicated his entire professional life to teaching, researching and raising awareness among professionals in the region and around the world regarding the prevention and early diagnosis of this carcinoma.

He is the author of seven textbooks and an equal number of reference works, among which are Prevention and Diagnosis of Oral Cancer.