Do Tattoos Cause Cancer? What Studies Show

In 2024 and 2025, two research teams in northern Europe published studies on tattoos and cancer. Both reported higher rates of lymphoma or skin cancer in tattooed people. Headlines followed quickly, and many of them dropped the caveats the researchers themselves put in writing. Here is what the two studies actually measured.

Researchers at Lund University used Sweden's national registers, which cover the whole population. They found every new case of malignant lymphoma diagnosed between 2007 and 2017 in people aged 20 to 60. For each case they picked three controls of the same age and sex. Tattoo history came from a questionnaire sent out in 2021.

The study population was 11,905 people. Only 54% of cases and 47% of controls answered, which matters — the people who reply to a survey may differ from those who do not. Tattoos were reported by 21% of people with lymphoma and 18% of controls.

The headline number: tattooed people had 1.21 times the rate of lymphoma overall. The confidence interval was 0.99 to 1.48. Because that range includes 1.0, the result did not reach statistical significance. In plain terms, chance has not been ruled out.

Two more findings are worth holding onto:

• Rates were highest in people whose first tattoo was less than two years before the index year, at 1.81 times. That timing is backwards for how most cancers develop, which points toward something other than cause.
• There was no rise in risk as the total tattooed body area got larger. If ink volume drove the risk, that is exactly where a rise should show.

By subtype, the highest ratios were for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma at 1.30 and follicular lymphoma at 1.29. Neither reached statistical significance. Our overview of lymphoma explains how these subtypes differ.

The second study came from the Danish Twin Registry. Twins are useful here because siblings share genes and often share childhood exposures, which strips out some confounding. The team ran two designs: a cohort of 2,367 randomly chosen twins, and a case-control study of 316 twins born between 1960 and 1996. Cancer diagnoses came from the Danish Cancer Registry. Tattoo status came from a 2021 survey.

In the case-control arm, tattooed people had 1.62 times the hazard of skin cancer other than basal cell carcinoma. For tattoos larger than the palm of a hand, the hazard was 2.37 for skin cancer and 2.73 for lymphoma.

Then the number that shows how thin this evidence is. When the researchers compared only the 14 twin pairs where one twin had tattoos and skin cancer and the other did not, the hazard ratio fell to 1.33, with a confidence interval of 0.46 to 3.84. Fourteen pairs cannot settle anything.

Note that the two studies contradict each other on the point that matters most for a cause-and-effect story. The Danish data say bigger tattoos carry more risk. The Swedish data say body area made no difference.

The biology behind the worry is not speculation. Tattooing injects pigment below the skin surface and sets off an immune response. Immune cells carry pigment particles away from the injection site into the lymphatic system, and pigment deposits in nearby lymph nodes have been confirmed. Tattoo inks can contain primary aromatic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and metals — chemical families with known cancer-causing members.

The proposed mechanism is that pigment sitting in tissue keeps the immune system mildly irritated for years, and that long-running inflammation raises the chance of abnormal cell growth. That is a plausible chain. It is not a proven one, and no study has yet traced it end to end.

Both studies are observational. Nobody was randomly assigned a tattoo. So tattooed and untattooed people can differ in ways that also affect cancer rates: sun exposure, smoking, alcohol, body art culture, and how closely a person's skin gets examined. Both research teams said in print that more work is needed to establish cause.

There is also a reporting problem specific to this topic. Tattoo history in both studies came from surveys filled out in 2021, sometimes many years after the cancer diagnosis. A cancer diagnosis can change how carefully someone recalls and reports past exposures.

The FDA does regulate tattoo ink as a cosmetic and tracks harm reports. Its confirmed list looks nothing like the headlines:

• Infection. Unsterile needles can transmit HIV, hepatitis, and staph infections. Contaminated ink has caused infections even when the artist followed clean technique. Some need long courses of antibiotics.
• Blood donation. A tattoo from an unregulated facility, or one using unsterile equipment or reused ink, can block blood or plasma donation for 12 months.
• Allergic reactions. Rare with tattoo pigments, but hard to treat, because the pigment cannot easily be taken out. Reactions can start years after the tattoo.
• Granulomas. Small nodules the body builds around pigment it treats as foreign.
• Keloids. Scars that grow past the wound edge, in people prone to them.
• MRI effects. Swelling or burning at tattooed skin during MRI has been reported, rarely and without lasting harm. Pigment can also blur images, mostly with permanent eyeliner during eye scans. The FDA's advice is to tell the radiologist, not to skip a needed scan.

Also note what is not approved. No color additive is approved for injection into skin. More than 50 pigments are in use, and some are industrial colors made for printer ink or car paint.

Two studies found modestly higher cancer rates in tattooed people. One of those results was not statistically significant, the other rested on 14 twin pairs at its most rigorous, and the two disagree about tattoo size. That is a signal worth following, not a finding to act on. Sensible steps are the same as for anyone: sun protection, and getting new or changing skin spots looked at, including ones sitting on a tattoo. For related claims, see our page on talcum powder.

• Nielsen C, Jerkeman M, Jöud AS, Tattoos as a risk factor for malignant lymphoma: a population-based case-control study, EClinicalMedicine 2024;72:102649, accessed August 6, 2026
• Clemmensen SB, Mengel-From J, Kaprio J, et al., Tattoo ink exposure is associated with lymphoma and skin cancers — a Danish study of twins, BMC Public Health 2025;25:170, accessed August 6, 2026
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Tattoos & Permanent Makeup: Fact Sheet, content current as of October 15, 2024, accessed August 6, 2026