Inclusion body myositis (IBM) is the most common muscle disease affecting individuals over 50 years of age. The inflammatory reaction is characterized by cell infiltrates predominated by CD8+ cytotoxic T cells. To analyze clonality of muscle infiltrating lymphocytes, we studied the complementarity determining region 3 (CDR3) length distribution of the T cell receptor (TCR). Muscle infiltrating lymphocytes were studied in three IBM patients and compared with peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) in two of these patients. The study was performed by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) of RNA extracted from muscle tissue and PBL followed by analysis of fragment length distribution of the CDR3 region in each of 24 different Vbeta families. There was a restricted usage of TCR Vbeta gene families in muscle infiltrating T cells in all three patients. Some of the TCR Vbeta gene families showed oligoclonal expansions but polyclonal patterns were dominating. The CDR3 distribution of most Vbeta families differed between muscle infiltrating lymphocytes and PBL indicating that T cells have expanded locally or selectively accumulated in muscle.