Tattoos and dermatological, plastic and visceral surgery

The estimated prevalence of tattooed individuals in Europe and in France is around 10%. The current "tattooed generation" was born mainly between 1975 and 1986, and according to a recent German study, the "typical tattooed" individual is a 30-year-old male or female with a mean tattooed area of 300 cm(2) or over in 61% of cases and more than one tattoo in 65% of cases. As this population gradually ages, physicians will be increasingly called on to treat tattooed areas, either for surgical removal of the tattoo itself or for excision of a suspect lesion or skin tumour, or for incision of the skin in a setting of either elective or emergency visceral surgery. This review focuses on the surgical situations potentially arising in tattooed patients.