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We have previously suggested that in a Japanese population the susceptible locus for Behçet's disease (BD) is HLA‐B51 itself. To confirm this finding in another population, we performed HLA class I typing using the PCR‐SSP method and analyzed eight polymorphic markers distributed within 1100 kb around the HLA‐B gene using automated sequencer and subsequent automated fragment detection by fluorescent‐based technology with the DNA samples of 84 Iranian patients with BD and 87 healthy ethnically matched controls. As a result, three microsatellite alleles (MICA‐A6, MIB‐348, C1‐4‐1‐217) and HLA‐B51 were found to be strongly associated with BD. Of these alleles HLA‐B51 is the most strongly associated allele. There were no alleles that were increased in allele frequency at any microsatellite loci centromeric of MICA or telomeric of HLA‐B51. Therefore, HLA‐B51 was confirmed to be by far the …