I remember hearing somewhere that cells keep absorbing the ink, die, then release the ink in a cycle as an explanation to why the tattoos blur over time. If the ink immersed cells are forced to die and regrow at a faster rate than surrounding cells, there is a higher risk of mutations?
Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma
11–20 of 207 posts
Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma
#12> In the group with lymphoma, 21 percent were tattooed (289 individuals), while 18 percent were tattooed in the control group without a lymphoma diagnosis (735 individuals). Sure, that’s a meaningful percentage difference, but with the relatively small sample size and different `n` values, I don’t make much of this at the moment.
Base rate fallacy.
Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma
#13> In the group with lymphoma, 21 percent were tattooed (289 individuals), while 18 percent were tattooed in the control group without a lymphoma diagnosis (735 individuals). Sure, that’s a meaningful percentage difference, but with the relatively small sample size and different `n` values, I don’t make much of this at the moment.
I suggest you read 'Study Size' under 'Methods'. Detecting an odds ratio of 1.3 with 80% power, and rounding way up to 3000 cases. To me that's not a small sample size, but definitely not the highest OR to aim for. Different cases vs. controls is not a problem for this study design. You pointing that out as a negative makes me think you might not know as much about epi study designs as your comment lets on
Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma
#14I'm curious what confounding factors might be at play. I think tattoos have gotten more mainstream in recent decades, but I'd guess that before that it correlated with other risk factors [0]. [0] I'm not making any kind of oblique reference. I have no idea what those factors might be.
The hypothesis is that macrophages transport ink to the lymph nodes during the healing period
Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma
#15If the correlation is proven true then that’s obviously terrible, but I’m in my mid 40s now, tattoo-less, and one of my biggest regrets is not getting a couple tattoos when I was younger. I feel like doing it now looks like a midlife crisis type thing. I always wanted one of those Thai tattoos where they manually tap tap tap the design into your skin with a mallet.
The quantum (those dots and lines) part of my tattoo is stick and poke: https://s.h4x.club/jkupYOrX
Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma
#16> In the group with lymphoma, 21 percent were tattooed (289 individuals), while 18 percent were tattooed in the control group without a lymphoma diagnosis (735 individuals). Sure, that’s a meaningful percentage difference, but with the relatively small sample size and different `n` values, I don’t make much of this at the moment.
Those look like sufficient sample sizes to me. How many samples would it take to convince you?
Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma
#17If the correlation is proven true then that’s obviously terrible, but I’m in my mid 40s now, tattoo-less, and one of my biggest regrets is not getting a couple tattoos when I was younger. I feel like doing it now looks like a midlife crisis type thing. I always wanted one of those Thai tattoos where they manually tap tap tap the design into your skin with a mallet.
Go for it!
Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma
#18> In the group with lymphoma, 21 percent were tattooed (289 individuals), while 18 percent were tattooed in the control group without a lymphoma diagnosis (735 individuals). Sure, that’s a meaningful percentage difference, but with the relatively small sample size and different `n` values, I don’t make much of this at the moment.
I looked up this journal, eClinicalMedicine, and it would be considered a pretty high-end medical one (impact factor = 15). However, this finding indeed seems like rubbish. The p-value for their central claim is p = .03. When bold claims come with these types of p-values, they generally don't replicate. I didn't look into what questionnaire the authors used, but they may have very well tried a bunch of correlations and this is what stuck.
It's surprising that this type of stuff can still get published in such high journals. This just makes me think that the field of medicine is failing to grapple with its replication issues. The social sciences get more heat for bad research, but I can't imagine that this type of stuff would fly today in a remotely comparable Psychology journal.
However, to be fair to the authors, those individual numbers you point out are the quantity with lymphoma and it would be more proper to say the sample sizes were n = 1398 for the tattoo group and n = 4193 for controls. There's also nothing really wrong with having unbalanced samples here. It's either be unbalanced or throw out control data... regardless, the barely significant p-value is the biggest concern. (If you're wondering how to judge a study's robustness, the easiest and generally most effective way is to just look at the p-values).
Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma
#19I remember hearing somewhere that cells keep absorbing the ink, die, then release the ink in a cycle as an explanation to why the tattoos blur over time. If the ink immersed cells are forced to die and regrow at a faster rate than surrounding cells, there is a higher risk of mutations?
Kurzgesagt did a video on how tattoo ink is locked in place by the immune system
Re: Possible association between tattoos and lymphoma
#20If the correlation is proven true then that’s obviously terrible, but I’m in my mid 40s now, tattoo-less, and one of my biggest regrets is not getting a couple tattoos when I was younger. I feel like doing it now looks like a midlife crisis type thing. I always wanted one of those Thai tattoos where they manually tap tap tap the design into your skin with a mallet.
Midlife is when everyone starts doing cool stuff because theyve built up the income to service it
Do whatever you like, it’s your life