Tattoos were associated with a 21% increased risk of lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, in an observational study of a Swedish cohort. The results are published in eClinical Medicine. While researchers were already aware of the potentially carcinogenic properties of some tattoo inks, the authors of this study said the impact they had on cancer risk was not, prompting them to undertake the current research.Â
Researchers identified cases of lymphoma in the Swedish National Cancer Register, a centralized database of cancer cases in the country. To include people most likely to have a tattoo they restricted the ages of patients they were interested in identifying to 20–60 years old, when they were diagnosed with lymphoma, between 2007 and 2017.Â
They then contacted affected individuals and controls — three per affected individual — to ask them to opt into the study and ended up with a study group of 1,398 people with lymphoma and 4,193 people without lymphoma. The size of the tattoo did not impact the risk of lymphoma. The two lymphomas that individuals with tattoos were at the most increased risk of developing compared to those without tattoos were diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and follicular lymphoma.Â
The increased risk that happens with tattooing was not studied in this research which emerges to be a limitation. Doctors say that further research is needed to come to a clear conclusion in this study since the effects of tattoos from related lifestyle factors is also necessary. They also say that the study can be a little complicated since there are a lot of different tattoo inks which makes it difficult to understand the effects.Â
Tattooing exposes people not only to the ink in the tattoo but also the risks associated with needle use.There is a risk that hepatitis C can be passed on via tattooing needles that are not properly sterilized, and links have been made between hepatitis C and increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.Â
