A Canadian scientist is developing a cream that may be able to remove tattoos.
Alec Falkenham, a doctoral student in pathology at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, has been working on a technique that would use a type of white blood cell to basically
“eat” the tattoo pigment, he said in a story on the Dalhousie University website.
If the technique can be perfected, it would be much less invasive than using lasers to remove tattoos, as is typically done now. The lasers tear apart the ink particles in the tattoo, and then those particles are absorbed by the person’s body.
Falkenham said two types of white blood cells, called macrophages, are active when someone gets a tattoo. “One set of macrophages transports some of the pigment to the draining lymph nodes, removing it from the area,” the university article said. “The other population that has ‘eaten’ the pigment goes deeper into your skin, becomes inactive and forms the visible tattoo. Over time, the macrophages that formed the tattoo are replaced by new macrophages, which cause the tattoo to blur and fade.”
So Falkenham’s idea was to create a cream that would target the macrophages that contain the pigment and remove them. Called Biphosphonate Liposomal Tattoo Removal, or BLTR, the cream has a liposome base. When the individual rubs the cream on the tattoo, macrophages will come to the site to remove the liposome from the cells, and at the same time take away the macrophages that contain the tattoo ink.
There currently are creams on the market that say they can fade or remove tattoos. The
Tattoo Removal Institute tested some of them and found that they did remove some tattoos, although it could take some time to do so.
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