People with tattoos bigger than the palm of their hand had more than double the risk of skin cancer and lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system, in a Danish twin study. The lymphoma number that went viral rests on 32 cancer cases, and only 7 of them had tattoos. Researchers at the University of Southern Denmark used the Danish Twin Registry for two studies. One followed 2,367 randomly chosen twins. The other looked at 316 twins born between 1960 and 1996, from pairs where at least one twin got cancer. Cancer diagnoses came from national records, tattoo details came from a 2021 survey, and BMC Public Health published the results in 2025. Ink from a tattoo travels from the skin into the blood and builds up in nearby lymph nodes, the small immune filters in places like your armpits and neck. The researchers worry the ink causes long-lasting inflammation there. Over years, that could push cells to grow out of control. Tattooed people in the second study had a 62 percent higher risk of skin cancer. For tattoos larger than a palm, skin cancer risk was 2.4 times higher and lymphoma risk was 2.7 times higher. In the group of 2,367 twins, tattooed people had about 4 times the risk of skin cancer. Once tattoo size was ignored, tattoos showed no clear link to lymphoma. Comparing each tattooed twin with their own untattooed sibling, the strongest test a twin study can run, wasn't possible for lymphoma because there were too few pairs. For skin cancer, that twin-versus-twin test used just 14 pairs and found a much smaller link that could easily be chance. Sun exposure wasn't measured either, and the authors note that tattoos can make skin cancers harder to spot. The concern about ink is serious enough to study further. The headline lymphoma risk, though, comes from 7 tattooed patients.

GENMAB AND ABBVIE SAY EPCORITAMAB IN COMBINATION WITH R-CHOP DEMONSTRATED A STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT IN PROGRESSION-FREE SURVIVAL IN PATIENTS WITH NEWLY DIAGNOSED DIFFUSE LARGE B-CELL LYMPHOMA (DLBCL), WITH THE PHASE 3 TRIAL SHOWING A 51% REDUCTION IN THE RISK OF PROGRESSION OR DEATH

Today is the 47th anniversary of my father Solomon Lutnick’s death. He went in for his first chemotherapy injection, and the nurse made a catastrophic mistake and killed him. I had lost my mother 18 months earlier to lymphoma. Forty-seven years ago, I learned what hell smells and feels like. My father was one of the most popular professors at Queens College. Funny and a great raconteur, he brought American history to life. His dissertation for his PhD at Columbia University was on how the British press misrepresented the Revolutionary War across the United Kingdom. He was calling out fake news in the late 1960s. While I lost him when I was only 18, he taught me to focus on precision, to be great, not good, and to read, read, read. Forty-seven years without my Dad, but I carry him inside of me, and I love telling stories about him. Solomon Lutnick September 6, 1928 – September 12, 1979

Hear from Dr. Larisa J. Geskin and fellow clinical experts in our free, CME-accredited webcast, where they explore the evolving therapeutic landscape of the tumor microenvironment in mycosis fungoides–type cutaneous T-cell lymphoma:

Hear from Dr. Larisa J. Geskin and fellow clinical experts in our free, CME-accredited webcast, where they explore the evolving therapeutic landscape of the tumor microenvironment in mycosis fungoides–type cutaneous T-cell lymphoma: