Tattoo ink exposure is associated with lymphoma and skin cancers
47 comments
·March 4, 2025flir
I wonder if tattoo removal bumps the risk even further - a bit like disturbing asbestos in a building. That would be a hard one to study.
jan_Inkepa
Yeah - if there was just a risk of having one I'd probably get mine removed, but yeah - I think I remember looking into it once and coming away thinking it's probably best to leave it as is. (I can't remember the details).
arisAlexis
Laser drives all the chems through your kidneys and bladder. Removing the upper skin layer could be safer ?
krisoft
> Removing the upper skin layer could be safer ?
Tattoos are not in the upper skin layer though. Also removing any skin layers is quite dangerous, at least in a statistical sense.
mordechai9000
There is a technique called salabrasion where the upper skin layers are rubbed off with a paste of salt. This doesn't remove the tattoo, but the ink is at least partially drawn up into the resulting scab during the healing process. It's probably not very safe, despite the use of salt, and removing skin like that over even a moderate area sounds brutal, but apparently it works well enough. And then, after one or more repetitions of the process, you are left with a highly visible scar, and maybe a faint tattoo, instead of just a tattoo.
metayrnc
> In the case-control study, individual-level analysis resulted in a hazard of skin cancer (of any type except basal cell carcinoma) that was 1.62 times higher among tattooed individuals (95% CI: 1.08–2.41)
awestley
If lifestyle differences are not accounted for, I'd put little stock in this.
queuebert
That's the entire point of twin studies and case controls. Did you read the article?
theamk
no, that makes no sense. How does having identical genetics negate problem of different lifestyles?
Even the authors agree with awestley:
> Additionally, having a tattoo, especially among adolescents, has been suggested as an indicator of risky lifestyle highly associated with e.g. smoking [4] and alcohol consumption [46] – both risk factors of certain cancer types. Hence, evidence of an association between tattoo ink exposure and occurrence of cancer may be confounded by other health-related lifestyle factors. We intend to exploit the remainder of the information gathered in the survey in the future.
Indeed, it does seem like a big problem that should really be accounted in the initial analysis.
mbreese
Twin studies can help control for things like genetics and environmental factors in childhood (exposures, socio-economic factors, etc). They can't control for lifestyle choices made by adults. So, if a person has tattoos, are they more likely to smoke? To have sun exposure? To drink heavily? All of these factors would need to be addressed to see how confounding they are to having a tattoo.
You could also look at tattoo coverage, as in how much of the body is covered in ink? Would a small tattoo on the shoulder have as much risk as a full back tattoo? There are a lot of extra confounders here that could be better explored, but it gets difficult to get a full dataset. However, given their survey data, they should have more analysis options with more time.
The lack of confounder analysis is a bit surprising, but perhaps the paper was long enough already.
hmmokidk
As someone with tattoos I am spending a lot of time in the sun without sunscreen and smoke enough nicotine to satiate some region in france probably.
nerdjon
It would be interesting if they could somehow look at the ink itself but without this being basically a lifelong study I realize that could be difficult.
Especially given the recent report of issues with some ink being used. I don't remember the specifics.
I doubt this would stop people from getting tattoos, and I know it isn't stopping myself from planning on being fully covered... but it is still interesting.
harimau777
It would be interesting to see if this applies to traditional tattoo inks as well. Are tāmoko still done with traditional inks? If so, then that might be an easy way to do a population study.
jl6
Associated with. Causal connection not yet proved. On the other hand, let’s be realistic, tattoos are not going to turn out to be good for you, are they.
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tyronehed
In life it's often more important what you don't do, then what you do do
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9991
Maybe it's inflammation from the ink. Maybe the kind of personality that gets tattoos is also prone to other carcinogenic behavior.
jahsome
I have a bunch of tattoos, and I don't care much about cancer risk, but I wish someone had warned me about the risks of being so damn itchy for the rest of my life.
tlavoie
"For the rest of your life"? You shouldn't be feeling anything different once it's all healed up. For a couple weeks, sure. My current work-in-progress gets the "second skin" permeable dressing for several days, then it comes off. For a few days after that, moisturizer. Now it's just part of me, but darker.
bn-l
Do they cause a lot itching? This is the first time I’ve heard that.
jahsome
I think my situation is pretty rare, but mine flare up periodically, maybe every other year, almost on a schedule.
It usually starts in one of the reds, and spreads inch by inch over the course of a few weeks. It gets raised and itches like crazy, and lasts 2-3 days in a small area before spreading. It's a real struggle not to scratch.
Unfortunately 1/4 of my body is essentially one giant tattoo, so it's got plenty of room to spread. The small patches of surrounding un-inked skin are completely unaffected, so I suspect it's definitely the ink.
When the first red tattoo I got REALLY swelled up, the tattoer told me it's rare but he'd seem it before, and some people don't take red well. From what I understand the red ink 20 years ago was formulated differently than now. I'm not entirely convinced it's just that color, because all of mine itch.
arisAlexis
Why would someone not care about cancer risks ?
jahsome
It's already essentially a guarantee. I figure I might as well enjoy my time while I'm here instead of extending a boring (to my tastes) life.
The study's conclusion that tattoo ink causes cancer fails to convince due to major methodological flaws. The sample sizes for the most important analyses (matched twin pairs) were tiny, with fewer than 5 informative pairs for lymphoma. Meanwhile, known lymphoma risk factors like viral infections, alcohol consumption patterns, and occupational exposures weren't properly controlled for. What we're likely seeing is correlation driven by lifestyle clustering - people with tattoos often have different behavioral patterns that independently affect cancer risk, but the study's crude "ever/never" smoking measure and absence of other key controls can't disentangle these complex relationships.