By DRS. DAVID NIESEL AND NORBERT HERZOG
More than 20 percent of Americans have tattoos, and last year more than 45,000 chose to get one removed, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. However, a new cream may make removing unwanted tattoos easy, cheap and painless.
When a tattoo is acquired, ink is deposited by needles beneath the epidermis, the outer layers of the skin. It is engulfed by cells of the immune system called macrophages that protect the body from this foreign invader. There are two populations of macrophages involved. One set ingests the ink and carries it away to the lymph nodes eliminating the ink. The second type of macrophage ingests the ink, moves deeper into the skin, becomes inactive and represents the site of the ink storage. This is what makes the tattoo. The reason tattoos fade over time is these macrophages eventually die and are replaced by new macrophages that do not have the ink.
As the number of people with tattoos has grown, the tattoo removal business has too. It is now worth more than $75 million a year in America. Conventional approaches to tattoo removal involve the use of lasers to break up the particles of ink into pieces small enough that the body can remove them. This is a costly, painful and time-consuming process.
The number of people undergoing tattoo removal increased tenfold from 2011 to 2013. Women account for 70 percent of tattoo removal patients.
However, a graduate student may have found a painless, cost-effective tattoo removal process that is as simple as applying some cream over the tattoo. Alec Falkenham is working on his doctoral degree in pathology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He thought about harnessing the body’s own defense mechanisms to eliminate the tattoo ink residing in the skin.
Falkenham and his colleagues have created a cream called Bisphosphonate Liposomal Tattoo Removal, or BLTR, cream that targets any remaining macrophages in the skin that retain the ink. This cream contains an active ingredient carried inside a liposome, a tiny fatty balloon. These liposomes are absorbed by the macrophages that contain ink but not any other cells. New macrophages are recruited to remove the macrophages that now contain liposomes and ink, taking them to a nearby lymph node to be eliminated. This accelerates the natural process that causes tattoos to fade.
The projected cost of the cream is about $4.50 Canadian dollars, much less than the hundreds of dollars required for laser removal. A bonus is that the cream is painless. Right now, they are testing BLTR cream on tattooed pig ears. It will take years of testing determine if this cream is safe and effective for humans and then it will become available to consumers. The researcher’s website is already full of comments from individuals interested in using the cream to remove tattoos they regret.
Medical Discovery News is a weekly radio and print broadcast highlighting medical and scientific breakthroughs hosted by professor emeritus Norbert Herzog and professor David Niesel, biomedical scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Learn more at www.medicaldiscoverynews.com.