Objective To analyze the profiles of antinuclear antibody(ANA) in senile primary biliary cirrhosis(PBC) patients. Methods Indirect immunofluorescence was used to test ANA in the serum samples of 70 senile PBC patients and of 360 aged-matched controls, including 120 health individuals, 80 patients with viral hepatitis, 40 with reumatoid arthritis, 30 with autoimmune hepatitis, 30 with mixed connective tissue disease, 30 with systemic lupus erythematosus, and 30 with systemic sclerosis. Immunoblot analysis was applied to examine AMA-M2, antinuclear dots pattern SP100 antibody and antinuclear membrane pattern gp210 antibody. Results In the 70 senile PBC patients, there were 66 positive with ANA (94%), with 43 cases of mixed immunofluorescence patterns. The positivity rate of AMA-M2 was 90%. For major immunofluorescence patterns of ANA in the senile PBC, the sensitivity was 88% (62/70), and the specificity was 91.6% (330/360). More over, 83.3% of senile PBC patients had ANA titer ≥1∶1000, which was significantly different from the controls (P＜0.01). Conclusion Immunofluorescence patterns of ANA in senile PBC patients are nuclear membrane pattern, nuclear dots pattern, centromere pattern and cytoplasm speckled pattern, and they usually present as mixed immunofluorescence pattern. ANA is of great value in the diagnosis of senile PBC.