Fig. 2.

Absolute numbers of peripheral blood dendritic cells (PBDCs) in each autoimmune disease patients. (a) The mean numbers of PBDCs in primary Sjögren's syndrome (SS) (mean 11 719/ml), secondary SS (mean 14 584) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) (mean 9749/ml) were significantly lower than those in 32 normal control subjects (mean 19 380) (tied P < 0·01). However, in systemic sclerosis (SSc) (mean 17 738) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) (mean 19 437), mean numbers of PBDCs were not decreased. (b) Similarly, the mean numbers of myeloid DCs in patients with primary SS (mean 5265), secondary SS (mean 7312) and SLE (mean 4876) were significantly lower than those in controls (mean 12 356) (tied P < 0·01). (c) On the other hand, the number of plasmacytoid DCs only in patients with SLE (mean 4873) was significantly lower than in normal controls (mean 7105) (tied P < 0·05).