To investigate these side effects, Schreiver and her colleagues used several different tests, to analyze what forms of tattoo ink were collecting in the lymph nodes and any damage that might have resulted. "I think people are aware that you can get skin infections from a tattoo, but I don't think most are aware that there may also be risks from the ink." "I was very curious about the chemical side effect of tattoos," Schreiver said. After surgically removing the nodes, the doctors realized that what had appeared to be malignant cells were actually tattoo ink particles. The researchers pointed out in their study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, that "pigmented and enlarged lymph nodes have been noticed in tattooed individuals for decades." Those reports came mostly from pathologists who began noticing unusual coloring in lymph node biopsies taken from tattooed patients.įor example, a 2015 report in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology described how doctors at first thought a woman's cervical cancer had spread to her lymph nodes. The researchers analyzed the lymph nodes of four cadavers that had tattoos, as well as two cadavers that had no tattoos, which served as controls. Schreiver was part of a team of German and French scientists that performed the first chemical analyses on tattoo ink collected at human lymph nodes. "For the most part, it is engulfed and then kind of sticks around in the dermis."īut researchers are now taking a closer look at the tattoo ink that does travel to other parts of the body, particularly the lymph nodes. Arisa Ortiz, a dermatologist and director of laser and cosmetic dermatology at the U.C. "Normally, the ink doesn't migrate too far from where it's injected," Dr. It then shows through the skin, perhaps spelling out "Mom" or featuring that eagle design you spent weeks choosing. The ink that's not cleared away by special repair cells, called macrophages, stays in the dermis within trapped macrophages or skin cells called fibroblasts. To be clear, most of the tattoo pigment stays put after a person gets a tattoo.
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