Autoimmune Diseases

Autoimmune diseases, with the exception of rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune thyroiditis, are individually rare, but together they affect approximately 5 percent of the population in Western countries.1,2 They are a fascinating but poorly understood group of diseases. In this review, we define an autoimmune disease as a clinical syndrome caused by the activation of T cells or B cells, or both, in the absence of an ongoing infection or other discernible cause. We will discuss a classification of autoimmune disease that distinguishes diseases caused by generalized defects in lymphocyte selection or homeostasis from those caused by aberrant responses to . . .