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Abstract

Dental caries is a chronic and widespread infectious disease that affects billions of people worldwide. The most prevalent chronic illness is one that, if left untreated, becomes worse over time. Objective: To determine the prevalence of the dental caries in the undergraduate student in medical and dental college of Jamshoro. Methods: With permission from Liaquat University of Medical and Health Science's Ethical Committee vide number ERC-19/2024/11, this observational cross-sectional study was carried out between April 2024, and November 2024. All students of Medical and Dentistry who were willing to participate in the study were included with 17–25 age range. Epi Info Software was used to calculate the sample size. 500 of the students were included as per the sample size calculation. Results: 300 (60%) of the participants were day scholars. The first, second, third, and fourth/final years were represented by students 105 (21%), 90 (18%), 175 (35%) and 130 (26%) respectively. 97 students (19.4%) had no DMFT score, whereas 403 students (80.6%) had dental caries with a DMFT score (>1). The test-takers' DMFT scores were as follows: 97 (19.4%) for a score of 0 and 139 for a score of 1 (27.8%). The DMFT scores were 102 (20.4%) for a score of 2, 136 (27.2%) for a score of 3, and 26 (5.2%) for a score of 4. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that the population's prevalence of dental caries was relatively low.