A 20-year-old man in China walked into a hospital about five months after having a small red cross tattooed on the front of his neck, just below his voice box. The tattoo was gone. In its place sat a crusted ulcer of dead tissue, sunken scars where the design had been, and hard lumps swelling under his jaw on both sides.
The ink had faded out roughly three months after the appointment. The damage came afterward. Doctors eventually diagnosed necrotizing granulomatous lymphadenitis, an immune reaction in which the body walls off material it cannot break down and then destroys the tissue around it. Writing in JAMA Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, the treating team described the case as only the second published report of necrosis following a tattoo.
