Tattoos May Increase The Incident of Lymphoma

A tattoo artist at work. (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)

 

By Jack Phillips, Breaking News Reporter

Breaking News

Getting a tattoo is correlated to developing a rare type of blood cancer—regardless of the size of the tattoo, a new study has found.

Researchers from Lund University in Sweden said that tattoos may increase the risk of developing lymphoma by 21 percent. They analyzed 11,905 participants, including 2,938 who had lymphoma, between the ages of 20 and 60.

They asked those with lymphoma and those without cancer to complete a questionnaire about whether they had tattoos.

“After taking into account other relevant factors, such as smoking and age, we found that the risk of developing lymphoma was 21 percent higher among those who were tattooed,” Dr. Christel Nielsen, study author and a professor at Lund University, said in a release issued by the college.

“It is important to remember that lymphoma is a rare disease and that our results apply at the group level. The results now need to be verified and investigated further in other studies and such research is ongoing.”

The study discovered that the risk of developing the rare form of blood cancer was highest among individuals who had their first tattoo fewer than two years before.

 

What’s more, Ms. Nielsen’s research group initially theorized that the size of the tattoo could impact the risk of developing lymphoma. However, that wasn’t the case.

“They thought that a full body tattoo might be associated with a greater risk of cancer compared to a small butterfly on the shoulder, for example. Unexpectedly, the area of tattooed body surface turned out not to matter,” the university news release said.

While officials aren’t sure why it’s the case, Ms. Nielsen said that “one can only speculate that a tattoo, regardless of size, triggers a low-grade inflammation in the body, which in turn can trigger cancer” and that “the picture is thus more complex than we initially thought.”

“We already know that when the tattoo ink is injected into the skin, the body interprets this as something foreign that should not be there, and the immune system is activated,” she continued.

 

“A large part of the ink is transported away from the skin, to the lymph nodes where it is deposited.”

The Swedish researchers added that they will try to determine whether there is a link between tattoos, other types of cancer, and other inflammatory diseases.

“People will likely want to continue to express their identity through tattoos, and therefore it is very important that we as a society can make sure that it is safe,” Ms. Nielsen said.

“For the individual, it is good to know that tattoos can affect your health and that you should turn to your health care provider if you experience symptoms that you believe could be related to your tattoo.”

 

The study, which was published on May 21 in eClinicalMedicine, used people diagnosed with lymphoma via population registers. They were then matched with a control group of the same age and sex who didn’t have lymphoma.

The Pew Research Center found last August that about 32 percent of American adults currently have a tattoo and that among that group, more than 22 percent have more than one tattoo. About 38 percent of women have a tattoo, while 27 percent of men have one, Pew also revealed.

Health officials have said that tattoo ink can sometimes cause inflammation.

“Tattoo pigment can precipitate many inflammatory states. The skin is the most common site of inflammation, but tattoo ink can become disseminated and cause systemic inflammation,” according to an article published by the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information.

And, according to the American Academy of Dermatology, tattoos can lead to multiple “unexpected skin reactions,” including infections, allergic reactions, rashes, and other skin diseases.