PREVALENCE OF DENTAL CARIES AMONG FEMALE PATIENTS

Abstract

Dental Caries is the most common global disease among children and adolescence. It has been reported that dental caries is highly prevalent among pre-school and school children in Saudi Arabia. Although, many developed countries have shown a decrease in prevalence of caries over past decades with some exceptions (1), yet developing countries have experienced an increasing incidence during this period. Very few studies are available on caries prevalence among female adults, though some studies were carried out in female intermediate school children in Saudi Arabia. In a study in central province of Saudi Arabia among intermediate female students in two regions; DMFT was 4.47 (SD 3.35) among female in Riyadh and 4.03 (SD 3.08) in Qaseem region. Two Indian studies concluded that caries prevalence was higher among females in different age groups as compared to males. Another study showed no significance difference in overall caries prevalence between males and females. However a Saudi study in 2006 concluded that male students aged 12-14 had a significantly higher mean DMFT value (7.20 SD: 3.89) than female students (4.66 SD: 4.59