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To the Editor:

In Iran coordinated efforts by the World Health Organization and the International League Against Rheumatism (ILAR) have led to a Community-Oriented Program for Control of Rheumatic Diseases (COPCORD)^1–4. The COPCORD study comprises 3 stages. In Tehran, the first stage started in 2003, and was intended to measure the prevalence of major rheumatic disorders in the urban adult population in a study carried out by the Rheumatology Research Center, Tehran University¹.

Although many studies have reported the prevalence of hand osteoarthritis (OA) in Western countries^4–8, fewer have covered it in the East^9,10. Epidemiological studies of OA…