Table 6.I.

Distinguishing characteristics between tuberculous and non tuberculous mycobacteria.

	Tuberculous mycobacterium	Non tuberculous mycobacterium
Habitat	Obligatory parasite	Ubiquitous (water-soil-animals-food)
Virulence	Pathogen	Opportunistic
Contagion	Human/human	Environmental
Epidemiology	Familiar TB contacts	Absence of TB contacts
Site	Supraclavicular, posterior cervical	Angulo-mandibular upper anterior cervical
Evolution	Slow	Faster
Cutis involvement	Infrequent	Always presenting evolution
Systemic symptoms	Low-grade fever, asthenia	Absent
PPD-T	Positive	Negative or weakly positive (between 5 and 10 mm)
QuantiFERON	Positive	Negative
Frequency	Infrequent	Infrequent but 10 times more frequent than TB
Sensitivity to anti-TB antibiotics	Good	Absent or poor