Douglas T. Dieterich, M. D.Chief of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Cabrini Medical Center
Assoc. Prof. of Medicine NYU School of Medicine
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date. Please explain what MAC is, and is this a form of tuberculosis?
Douglas T. Dieterich, M. D.
Chief of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Cabrini Medical Center
Assoc. Prof. of Medicine NYU School of Medicine
This actually MAC and it stands for Mycobacterium Avium Complex. It is a group of bacteria related to TB that are almost purely opportunistic. That is that they only infect people whose immunity is down. For people with HIV, they only have a risk for MAC when the CD4 or T-cells are very low, like less than 50 or 100. Prophylaxis for MAC is available for those people who have low CD4 cells and works well.
(Editor's Note: You can also find an excellent and detailed
summary of MAC, and other opportunistic conditions, at the
website of Project Inform:
http://www.projectinform.org/cgi-bin/print_hit_bold.pl/fs/mac.html?mac#first_hit)
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