Can tattoos increase the risk of skin cancer?

Many inks are made with metals; blue, for example, contains cobalt and aluminium, and red may contain mercury sulfide. That, along with the fact that tattooing can be traumatising to the skin, prompted suspicion that tattoos might lead to skin cancer. Studies in recent years have documented a few cases of cancer at a tattoo site.

But Dr. Ariel Ostad, an assistant clinical professor of dermatology at NYU Langone Medical Centre in Manhattan, says that does not mean the tattoo caused the cancer. Indeed, he said, the ink is unlikely to do any harm because it is confined to cells in the skin called macrophages, whose job is to absorb foreign material.

More likely, he said, the tattoo was placed on an existing mole, making any changes in the mole hard to spot. Several case studies have dealt with melanomas that were overlooked because they arose from moles hidden by tattoos. Ostad says he is often asked whether tattoos can lead to cancer, and the answer “is unequivocally no ”. “But people should know that they should always leave a rim of healthy skin around a pre-existing mole”. — © 2009 The New York Times News Service