Tattoos may increase the risk of lymph node cancer, according to a new Swedish study. And the size of the tattoo does not seem to play a role.
Tattoos are becoming increasingly popular – in Sweden, one in five people is now tattooed, and among the young, the proportion is even higher, according to researchers at Lund University behind the new study.
In the study, people who had lymphoma when they were between 20 and 60 years old were compared with a matching control group from the population. Participants were asked to complete questionnaires to see who had been tattooed.
According to the results, the risk of lymph node cancer, lymphoma, was 21 percent higher among those who were tattooed than among those who were not. This after adjusting for smoking and other factors that can affect it.
What surprises the researchers is that it didn't matter if someone had a small tattoo or one that covered large parts of the body.
"We don't know what it depends on yet. But you can speculate that a tattoo, regardless of size, starts a low-grade inflammation in the body, which in turn can trigger cancer," says Christel Nielsen, docent in epidemiology at Lund University, one of the researchers, in a comment.
Since lymphoma is a very rare disease, it's about a risk increase from very low levels. The researchers emphasize that more studies are needed to confirm and investigate the relationship.
The study is published in the scientific journal Eclinical Medicine.
The researchers' questionnaire was completed by 1,398 people with lymphoma and 4,193 people without the disease.
