This complete-enumeration, before-and-after study (without controls), was conducted on third-year medical students in Maharashtra, India. Traditional didactic lectures were delivered on eight non-communicable diseases/conditions mentioned in the University syllabus for the subject of Community Medicine. The pre-test, conducted after the traditional didactic lectures, comprised eight questions pertaining to these eight topics. For case-based learning, participating students (n=61) were randomly assigned, using lottery method, to two sub-groups comprising 30 and 31 students, respectively, to enable small-group discussion. The students in each sub-group were similarly exposed to case scenarios on all eight non-communicable diseases/conditions and the same facilitators jointly guided the discussion. An identical questionnaire was used for the pre- and post-tests. The scores from students in the two sub-groups were combined for analysing results of the pre- and post-tests. The outcome studied was the difference in cognitive domain scores after attending traditional didactic lectures (by pre-test) and case-based learning (by post-test). The mean correct scores (out of 80) in the post-test (51.61 ± 7.42) were significantly higher (Z=10.088; p<0.0001) than that in the pre-test (40.61 ± 4.18). Gender difference was statistically significant for questions on obesity (Z=2.622; p=0.0088) and blindness (Z=2.017; p=0.0434) in the pre-test, but there was no significant gender difference in the post-test scores. Though case-based learning significantly increased the cognitive domain scores in all eight topics, additional educational interventions would be required for some students who obtained low scores in the post-test