Slow viruses and the immune system in the pathogenesis of local tissue damage in Sjögren's syndrome.

Primary Sjogren's syndrome is a systemic autoimmune disease characterised by intense focal lymphocytic infiltration of exocrine glands, accompanied by B lymphocytic hyperreactivity that can lead to B cell lymphomas.' Hypotheses about the pathogenesis of the syndrome have changed with our increasing knowledge of basic biology and immunology. It has been suggested that hormonal, genetic, environmental, and stress factors set up several immune functional abnormalities, especially in the peripheral suppressor cell compartment of patients with primary Sjogren's syndrome.2 We present here