Body Art on Campus

A new survey finds that more than half of college students have some type of body piercing nearly a quarter are tattooed. The concern comes with the finding that 17 percent of the students reported a medical complication from the piercing.
More than 450 students from Pace University in Pleasantville, N.Y. completed the survey. The students were asked about their body piercings and tattoos. They were also asked about complications associated with the body art.

Researchers at Pace University say they came up with the study idea after noticing how common piercing and tattooing were among the students. They found 51 percent of students had body piercing and 23 percent had a tattoo. Male athletes were more likely to have a tattoo than those not involved in sports. As for body piercing, in the female students, the navel was the body site most often pierced. For the sake of the study, researchers did not consider women's earlobes as a piercing spot. The second most common piercing spot in female students was in a part of their ear other than the lobe. In the male students, the most common body site pierced was the ear.

Seventeen percent of students report some medical complication from a piercing. The complications include bacterial infection, bleeding and injury or tearing at the site. Researchers say that they did not have any medical complications reported from students who were tattooed. However, they point out that it might be too early to detect hepatitis B, hepatitis C or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) contracted through the tattooing procedure.


SOURCE: Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 2002;77:29-34

Is Donated Tissue Dangerous?

Testing to make blood transfusions safer has been extensively done. But what about testing tissue donations? A new study shows the measures done to check for viruses such as hepatitis B or human immunodeficiency virus in tissue donations are effective, but could be improved.

Tissue banks in the United States collect, process and distribute a variety of tissues including heart valves, venous tissue, bone, bone-derived products, and connective tissues. Researchers from the American Red Cross conducted a study to look at testing procedures to reduce the risk of transmission of viral infections from tissue grafts.

For the research, investigators examined 11,391 tissue donations from five tissue banks in the United States. Researchers looked at the rates of prevalence of hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, HIV, and human T-lymphotrophic virus among tissue donors. The probability of the virus undetected by screening at the time of the donation was estimated based on the window periods for each infection.

The prevalence of confirmed positive tests among tissue donors was 1 percent or less for each of the viruses. The estimated probability of a virus at the time of donation ranged from 1 in 55,000 for HIV to 1 in 128,000 for HTLV.

Researchers conclude the prevalence rates for the four infections are lower among tissue donors than in the general population. However, the estimated undetected virus at the time of donation is higher among tissue donors than first-time blood donors. Study authors say while the current measures to detect viruses in tissue donations are effective, improvements can be made. They recommend adding a nucleic acid amplification test to reduce the numbers even more. They say that test costs about $5 per product.


SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine, 2004;351:751-759