Background Optimum oral health is impossible to achieve without managing dental caries. The first step to manage dental caries at a community level is to know its prevalence and trend. Unfortunately, the prevalence of dental caries at the national/regional level is not known in many developing countries. Pakistan is no exception. The present meta-analysis was planned to document the prevalence of dental caries at the national, as well as regional level. This paper will serve as a baseline for making future health policies, and health promotion activities in the country. Methods Literature was searched through various databases, such as PubMed, SCOPUS, and Web of science using: "Prevalence", "Dental Caries", "Dental Decay" and "Severity" as keywords. Any study that reported the prevalence of dental caries, and was conducted in the Pakistani population was included. Thirty studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Quality assessment of all the included studies was performed using Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal checklist for prevalence studies. MedCalc software was used to analyze the data. Results In total 27,878 subjects were included in a meta-analysis from 30 studies. The prevalence estimate of dental caries at the national level was 56.62% (95% CI: 49.54 to 63.57). The I2 value was 99.07% (95% CI: 98.94 to 99.18), (I2 > 75%) indicating heterogeneity, hence pooled proportion was reported using a random-effect model. The prevalence estimate of dental caries in Sindh was 58.946% (95% CI: 43.796 to 73.274), and in Punjab, it was 55.445% (95% CI: 44.174 to 66.44), whilst in Baluchistan and KPK combined was 51.168% (95% CI: 22.930 to 79.004). Conclusion Based on the existing data nearly 60% of the Pakistani population have dental caries. The proportion is almost the same in all provinces. Most of the included studies were found to be of high risk.

Telerehabilitation offers an alternative healthcare delivery remotely in a patient’s environment at a lower cost, better accessibility, and equivalent quality to the standard approach. Several studies had examined the effectiveness of telerehabilitation inpatients with musculoskeletal disorders, and although there is evidence that it is at least equally effective as the standard care, the patient and rehabilitation professional satisfaction with the delivery method is not conclusive. A systematic review was conducted to study the patients’ and rehabilitation professionals’ satisfaction with telerehabilitation for musculoskeletal disorders. A search for relevant studies on 29 April 2021 was carried out in Medline/PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science (WOS). The search terms included “telerehabilitation,” AND “satisfaction” AND “musculoskeletal disorders,” “telehealth,” “telemedicine,” “patient experience,” and “pain”. Fifteen eligible studies with 12,341 patients were included in this systematic review. A report was included if it (a) assessed the satisfaction of patients or professionals or both as one of the outcomes of a telerehabilitation intervention, (b) included adults 18 years and above with musculoskeletal disorders, and (c) is an intervention study using a quantitative approach. The quality of studies was assessed using the critical appraisal checklist tool developed by Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI). Most of the studies reported that patients were satisfied with both telerehabilitation and face-to-face intervention. However, few studies reported that patients were more satisfied with telerehabilitation compared to face-to-face of intervention. Patients in one study had preferred the incorporation of telerehabilitation and face-to-face sessions. Two of three studies had reported overall satisfaction with telerehabilitation by the professionals. Overall, there is evidence that patients and rehabilitation professional are satisfied with telerehabilitation compared to face-to-face consultation.

BackgroundOptimum oral health is impossible to achieve without managing dental caries. The first step to manage dental caries at a community level is to know its prevalence and trend. Unfortunately, the prevalence of dental caries at the national/regional level is not known in many developing countries. Pakistan is no exception. The present meta-analysis was planned to document the prevalence of dental caries at the national, as well as regional level. This paper will serve as a baseline for making future health policies, and health promotion activities in the country.MethodsLiterature was searched through various databases, such as PubMed, SCOPUS, and Web of science using: "Prevalence", "Dental Caries", "Dental Decay" and "Severity" as keywords. Any study that reported the prevalence of dental caries, and was conducted in the Pakistani population was included. Thirty studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Quality assessment of all the included studies was performed using Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal checklist for prevalence studies. MedCalc software was used to analyze the data.ResultsIn total 26952 subjects were included in a meta-analysis from 30 studies. The prevalence estimate of dental caries at the national level was 56.62 % (95% CI: 49.54 to 63.57). The I2 value was 99.07% (95% CI: 98.94 to 99.18), (I2 > 75%) indicating heterogeneity, hence pooled proportion was reported using a random-effect model. The prevalence estimate of dental caries in Sindh was 58.946% (95% CI: 43.796 to 73.274), and in Punjab, it was 55.445% (95% CI: 44.174 to 66.44), whilst in Baluchistan and KPK combined was 51.168% (95% CI: 22.930 to 79.004). ConclusionBased on the existing data nearly 60 % of the Pakistani population have dental caries. The proportion is almost the same in all provinces. Most of the included studies were found to be of high risk.

BackgroundOptimum oral health is impossible to achieve without managing dental caries. The first step to manage dental caries at community level is to know its prevalence, and trend. Unfortunately, prevalence of dental caries at national/regional level is not known in many developing countries. Pakistan is of no exception. The present meta-analysis was planned to document prevalence of dental caries at national, as well as regional level. This paper will serve as baseline for making future health policies, and health promotion activities in the country.MethodsLiterature was searched through various databases, such as PubMed, SCOPUS, and Web of science using: "Prevalence", "Dental Caries", "Dental Decay" and "Severity" as keywords. Any study that reported prevalence of dental caries, and was conducted in Pakistani population was included. Thirty studies fulfilled the mentioned criteria, and was included. Quality assessment of all the included studies was performed using Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal checklist for prevalence studies. MedCalc software was used to analyses the data.ResultsIn total 26952 subjects were included in meta-analysis from 30 studies. The prevalence estimate of dental caries at national level was 56.32 % (95% CI: 49.326 to 63.197). The I2 value was 99.07% (95% CI: 98.94 to 99.18), (I2 > 75%) indicating heterogeneity , hence pooled proportion was reported using random effect model. The prevalence estimate of dental caries in Sindh was 58.135% (95% CI: 43.906 to 71.705), and in Punjab it was 53.95% (95% CI: 44.179 to 63.57), whilst in Baluchistan and KPK combined was 51.17% (95% CI: 22.930 to 79.004).ConclusionBased on the existing data nearly 60 % of Pakistani population have dental caries. The proportion is almost same in all provinces. Most of the included studies found to be of high risk.

Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of ultrasonography in diagnosis of infectious maxillofacial/swelling. Study Design: Simple Cross Sectional study. Setting: Outpatient Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Unit, Punjab Dental Hospital, Lahore. Period: February 2016 to August 2016. Material & Methods: Conducted on 100 patients. The patients were evaluated with the ultrasound diagnostic modality. The ultrasound interpretation of all the cases was done and best possible diagnosis was made and recorded regarding diagnosis of infectious maxillofacial swellings. The incisional biopsy of every patient was done for histopathology. All findings of ultrasound and histopathology were entered to a proforma. Results: The average age of the patients was 35.81±14.31 years. In this study, 63% patients were males and 37% were females. Out of 100 patients, 70(70%) patients had infectious swelling while 30(30%) did not have infectious swelling. The sensitivity of ultrasonography was calculated as 84.72%, specificity was 67.86%, positive predictive value was 87.14%, negative predictive value was 63.33% and diagnostic accuracy was noted as 80% taking histopathology as gold standard. Conclusion: It was concluded from results of this study that ultrasonography has enough diagnostic accuracy to diagnose infectious swellings of maxillofacial region.