In 2012, doctors had operated on a woman with cervical cancer thinking that more tumors had appeared. Apparently, the doctors mistook her tattoos on a body image scan for secondary tumors.
A 32-year old woman from California is suffering from cervical cancer. However, after her routine body image scan, doctors mistook the ink from her tattoos as tumors that re-appeared. Also, the woman's lymph nodes lit up during a PET scan which led to doctors to diagnose that her cancer has spread, Mail Online reports.
It was later revealed after surgery that the lymph nodes were able to absorb some of the ink from her numerous tattoos covering her lower extremities. Thus, they looked like cancer during the scan, Mirror reports.
The doctors removed the woman's uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes and pelvic lymph nodes during the surgery. After that, they realized their mistake. In awe, they rechecked the woman's PET scan and realized that the bright spots were the result of her tattoos.
"Those lymph nodes that were lighting up brightly on the PET scan were doing so because of the tattoo pigment that was in the lymph nodes," Dr. Ramez Eskander, one of the doctors who treated the woman said.
"We want to make sure that people understand that these false positives could potentially arise in patients that have tattoos," he added.
The case which happened in 2012 was reported in a case study published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. After the surgery, the woman did not suffer from any complications and was allowed to leave the hospital after three days. Now, the woman is cancer-free.
Dr. Eskander reminded that the case should serve as a warning to patients with tattoos and their doctors.
"So what we wanted to do was educate physicians, patients, families that hey, when there's a PET scan that shows a bright lymph node, if the patient has significant tattoos or body art, then you have to be cognizant that these might be false positives."
