There are fewer childhood caries studies in the developing countries when compared with
the developed countries. The studies in developing countries mostly report a high
prevalence of caries in school children. Stephen in his review of caries in young children
worldwide has summarized the prevalence of caries in young children in various parts of the
world. It can be noted from his review that studies from majority of the developing countries
report a caries prevalence of higher than 50%. In 1982, the World Health Organization and …

The objectives of the study were to determine the caries prevalence, severity and pattern in
primary school children of Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia. Four hundred and fifty seven randomly
selected primary school children were examined for this purpose. The result showed caries
prevalence of 82.9% with a mean dmft of 4.45 [SD 3.76]. The mean dmft difference between
male and female children was statistically significant [p< 0.0001]. The mean dmft of urban
children was significantly [p< 0.0001] lower than that of their rural counterparts. There was …