Be Aware: Your Tattoos Could Cause False-Positive Results for Cancer

By Korin Miller, Women's Health

Your tattoo may do more than showcase your favorite body art—it can cause doctors to falsely believe you have cancer.

That’s what happened to a 32-year-old woman recently who is actually battling cervical cancer. Ink from her tattoos, which cover her legs and thighs, caused a body-imaging test called a PET scan to light up, leading doctors to believe that her cancer had spread.

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California surgeon Ramez Eskander, M.D., told CBS Los Angeles that the ink lit up his patient’s lymph nodes, a typical sign that cancer is present.

It wasn’t until they were in the operating room that doctors realized that it was tattoo ink that caused the spots to appear, not cancer cells.

The woman still received a hysterectomy because she had cervical cancer, but didn’t need to undergo radiation since it hadn’t spread like the scans indicated.

But how did this happen? "When you tattoo, some of that ink will be absorbed in the cells in the lymphatic system and migrate to levels of lymph nodes," explained Eskander.
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He published his findings in the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, noting in his paper that physicians should be aware of the possible effects of tattoos on body scans while developing a treatment plan for patients.

"When there is a PET scan that shows a bright lymph node, if a patient has significant tattoos or body art, then you have to be cognizant that these might be false positives,” he said.

So should you be worried if you have a tattoo? Maybe. It’s worth noting that this woman had a lot of tats (Eskander defined it as “excessive” in his paper), so if you have just a small one, you’re probably okay.

 

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