Tattoos can be a way to express yourself, show off your creativity, cover up something on your body you don’t like, and even signify your love for someone or something.
But did you know that this permanent body artwork could also give your doctor a reason to falsely believe you have cancer?
In 2015, a 32-year-old woman battling cervical cancer took a PET scan and the ink from her tattoos that cover her legs and thighs caused the test to suggest that the cancer had spread, reports Daily Mail.
According to her doctor, California surgeon Ramez Eskander, M.D, “The ink lit up the patient’s lymph nodes, a typical sign that cancer is present. It wasn’t until we were in the operating room that doctors realized that it was tattoo ink that caused the spots to appear, not cancer cells.”