Doctors were left baffled after testing an Australian woman for cancer only to discover the lumps under her arms were caused by old tattoo ink.
The 30-year-old woman had come into a clinic after discovering the lumps – and her doctors discovered enlarged lymph nodes in her chest during a scan.
They suspected she had a type of cancer called lymphoma but when they put the enlarged lymph node under a microscope, they found her immune system was reacting to black pigment from a back tattoo she’d had for 15 years.
The unusual case was described in a report released in the Annals of Internal Medicine journal on Monday.
Doctors were left baffled after testing an Australian woman for cancer only to discover the lumps under her arms were caused by old tattoo ink
‘Ninety-nine times out of ten, [this] will be lymphoma,’ Dr Christian Bryant, a haematologist at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, said, according to CNN.
Dr Bryant, who was one of the unidentified woman’s doctors, said he and his colleagues had never seen anything like it.
He said other reports have cited swollen, pigmented lymph nodes that have been mistaken for melanoma.
But in this case, it was the first time they’d come across a case where the nodes were deep enough to possibly be lymphoma.
As well as the 15-year-old back tattoo, she had a tattoo on her left shoulder that was around two-and-a-half years old (file photo)
The woman’s doctors removed a lymph node from her armpit and found a cluster of cells filled with black pigment.
As well as the 15-year-old back tattoo, she had a tattoo on her left shoulder that was around two-and-a-half years old.
But doctors remain clueless about what triggered the reaction after 15 years.
Dr Bryant added that the last time he saw the woman, the swelling in the lymph nodes had subsided – and she was not going to endure any major problems.
‘I think there’s absolutely no way to know how common it is,’ he added.