Skin diseases and tattoos: a five-year experience

Decorative tattooing as a body art form underwent an exponential increase during the last two decades, particularly among teenagers and young adults. Consequently, the number of reported adverse reactions after tattooing has increased. The most frequent reported skin reactions to tattoo include infectious (bacterial, viral, fungal) or inflammatory (allergic contact dermatitis and granulomatous reaction) diseases. Moreover, tattoos can also induce the development of typical skin lesions of pre-existing dermatoses, a phenomenon known as isomorphism reactive or Koëbner phenomenon, which commonly occurs in patients with psoriasis, vitiligo, or lichen planus.

A retrospective study analyzing records data of patients attending the Department of Dermatology, University of Naples "Federico II" during 2011-2015 was performed. All cases of tattoo-related or closely-located dermatitis were selected.

We observed 19 patients (mean age: 26.4 years old) showing cutaneous conditions related to the practice of tattooing. Allergic contact dermatitis was reported as the most common cutaneous disease linked to tattooing (31.6%), followed by granulomatous reactions (26.3%). These data are consistent with those already reported in the literature.

Our results highlight the need to develop detailed regulations regarding tattoos practice, used materials, as well as execution procedures in order to limit the outbreak of tattoo-related skin diseases.