[Virus and systemic vasculitis].

The participation of genetic and environmental factors has always been invoked in the pathogenesis of the autoimmune systemic diseases, including the primary vasculitides. Among the environmental factors, infections, fundamentally those having a viral nature, have always been focused on, especially after the discovery of the close existing relationship between the polyarteritis nodosa and the hepatitis B virus, on the one hand, and mixed cryoglobulinemia and the hepatitis C virus, on the other. The present review summarizes data from the most recent literature related to associations between virus infections and primary vasculitides, following the Chapel-Hill vasculitis classification.