Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is more common in people who have had a tattoo, research shows.
Significantly, this relationship held true in patients without other risk factors for infection, such as a history of blood transfusion or injection drug use.
"These
findings have important implications for screening non-injection drug
users in the United States, particularly since the prevalence of
tattooing is on the rise and intravenous drug use is on the decline,"
say Fritz Francois (New York University, USA) and colleagues.
Read more... Labels: epidemiology, screening, transmission, warnings