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Welcome to the Glossary of Commonly Used HIV/AIDS Terms! This feature provides a number of uses. Learn basic definitions, brush up on medical terms or provider lingo, or use the glossary as a reference guide in understanding the many acronyms found in the HIV/AIDS language. Whatever your needs, use the glossary to meet them.
Just click a letter below to see the terms listed.
| Malignant/Malignancies | |
Refers to cells or tumors growing in an uncontrolled fashion. Such growths may spread to and disrupt nearby normal tissue, or reach distant sites via the bloodstream. By definition, cancers are always malignant, and the term "malignancy" implies cancer. | |
| Meningitis | |
An inflammation of the meninges (membranes surrounding the brain or spinal cord), which may be caused by a bacterium, fungus or virus. | |
| Morbidity | |
The condition of being diseased or sick; also the incidence of disease or rate of sickness. | |
| NRTI (Nucleoside Analog Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitor, NRTI, called "nuke") | |
The first effective class of antiviral drugs (e.g., AZT or ZDV, ddI, ddC, d4T, ABC). NRTIs act by incorporating themselves into the HIV DNA, thereby stopping the building process. The resulting HIV DNA is incomplete and unable to create new virus. | |