A new purpose for tattoos: Medical alert tattoos

Abstract

Tattooing has gained a tremendous popularity for the past twenty years. The motivations that drive an individual to acquire a tattoo are plentiful. Tattooing has also found its way in the field of medicine (corneal tattooing, gastrointestinal tattooing during endoscopy, permanent make-up tattooing, scar camouflage or radiotherapy field marking...). An emerging application of tattooing is for the purpose of medical identification for conditions requiring special attention during emergency situations, such as patients with diabetes who may be found unconscious due to hypoglycaemia or with allergy to specific medication. This new phenomenon, (practiced by patients on their own without medical consultation) can be found on the Internet. We review here this practice, which is seemingly underreported in the medical literature with its advantages and potential drawbacks.