The influence of the slow-light effect on the performance of distributed Brillouin sensors is studied. We show that, while in most situations it can be neglected, it may greatly affect the results obtained for certain experimental configurations. More specifically, for one of the experimental arrangements described in the literature (a strong continuous-wave pump and a weak pulsed probe) we show that this effect induces a large time biasing of the traces that depends not only on the fiber length but also on the frequency separation between pump and probe. This biasing reduces the available resolution in this experimental arrangement. © 2006 Optical Society of America.